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This is where health care leadership comes together.

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Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500

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hospital and health system executives and nearly 800

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speakers to Chicago, April 13 through the sixteenth.

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This year's event includes keynote conversations with Dallas

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Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George

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w Bush. For the agenda and event details,

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visit beckershospitalreview.com

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and click on the events tab in the

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upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you

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in Chicago.

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This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Health

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Care Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined

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for a short episode with Laura Dierdott,

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and we're gonna talk really about three different

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things.

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The first couple are are big health care

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institutions,

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systems

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sort of pruning what they do and and

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and pruning their their entire operations

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to be sharper going forward.

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Those are first two stories. And then third,

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we'll talk about some evolutions at Oracle HealthCare

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and what they're trying to do to make

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things better as well. Laurel, let me ask

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you to touch on the first two stories

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first, what you're seeing at community health systems,

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what you're seeing at common spirit, then we'll

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talk a little bit about what you're seeing

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at Oracle Healthcare.

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Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Scott.

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I mean, I think, you know, looking at

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community health systems, one of the largest for

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profit hospital operators

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have really taken some big and deliberate steps

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to, prune their portfolio and focusing on markets

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that make the most sense for them. Since

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the beginning of the year in particular, they've

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had a couple of big transactions, including one

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where they sold 80% stake that they had

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in a 270

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bed hospital in system to Vanderbilt Health,

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in around $623,000,000

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deal that took the the hospital and system

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into Vanderbilt's enterprise.

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And then CHS also

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closed a sale earlier this year in Pennsylvania,

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which sold three hospitals to Tenor Health Foundation,

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a newly formed nonprofit,

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for around thirty three million dollars plus a

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$15,000,000 promissory note. So,

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with that deal, CHS was really exiting the

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Pennsylvania market in the hole and and trying

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to get into a space where, they're able

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to double down. The health system still owns

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around 65

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affiliated hospitals in 13 states, but we expect

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them to be more selective around how they

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deploy capital and manage that attention

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in the future.

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And we're seeing a similar move by CommonSpirit

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Health as well, another

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huge,

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health system with

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locations across the country.

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CommonSpirit previously had been in a joint venture

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with Tenet

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Healthcare around, for health solutions, which is a

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revenue cycle management company and subsidiary.

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CommonSpirit

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will pay Tenet around $1,900,000,000

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over the next three years, and Conifer's paying

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540,000,000

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to redeem CommonSpirit's

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24%

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equity stake. And so now Conifer will be

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fully tenants. And in that deal, tenant will

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be in a space where they have full

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ownership. It'll give them more flexibility to invest

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in Conifer's future,

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particularly in automation,

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artificial intelligence, and and global operating capabilities.

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But for common spirit, that deal signals something

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a bit different. It's part of a multiyear

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integration and simplification

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strategy as stated by executive leadership,

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framing it as a move to align more

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around a single operating model,

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for the health system, which came together,

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as multiple different systems in regions across the

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country. And so they're really focusing on on

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how they can have a strategy that makes

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the most sense for their organization,

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in in really serving the hospitals

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that they have a mission to serve.

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I I think too for

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common spirit as well as many others, there's

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a really strong focus on expanding the ambulatory

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space as well and making sure that there

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are outpatient locations, ambulatory surgery centers,

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clinics, and more where they really see opportunities

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to expand access to care as well as

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in virtual care versus having more inpatient space.

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And so I think those are some of

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the big trends we're seeing for the large

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hospital operators as they're thinking about their portfolios

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and sharpening their focus for the future. I

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mean, it is fascinating to see

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tenant go back to owning Conifer a 100%.

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I mean, tenants really remade themselves a lot

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over the last decade.

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Really an outpatient provider to USPI

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back to the revenue cycle business through Conifer.

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Just fascinating.

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And then also community health systems really has

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sharpened their footprint too to get debt under

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control, to get those back to profitability, and

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they really made great strides in that direction.

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Talk to us for a second about Oracle

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Healthcare and what you see there. Absolutely.

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So for Oracle Health, they're expanding their clinical

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AI agent, recent announcement, and that goes beyond

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documentation into another clinician pain point, which is

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order entry. So the company said that its

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clinical AI tool will be able to automatically

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draft orders,

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during patient visits and continue to use ambient

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listening to support physicians as they're trying to

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have more time to expand their capacity with

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patients, have more human to human interaction, and

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and less repetitive administrative work. And that really

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doubles into kind of a focus we're seeing

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across the board. I I know clinician shortages

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are something that is a huge challenge for

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hospitals and systems, as well as burnout. And

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so when we're looking at how we can

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expand capacity and,

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really make sure they're able to serve patients

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in in a quick and effective manner,

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you know, there's not gonna be a huge

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increase in the health care workforce that might

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have been needed in the past. But if

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they can leverage technology smartly, they can,

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you know,

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solve some of those problems. And so I

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think some of these companies,

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are really taking that to heart, and it's

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been interesting to see how they do that.

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Thank you so much. Laura,

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fantastic to visit with you today.

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Three crisp, clear stories

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talking about common spirit, Tenet,

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community health systems,

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and and finally about Oracle Healthcare and what

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they're doing. The common spirit tenant stories are

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are related, so I count those as one

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story,

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and then separately, the community health systems and

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oracle. Laura, thank you so much for joining

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us today on the Beckers Hooktail podcast. That

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was great. Thank you very, very much.

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Thanks, Scott. It's always a pleasure.