Florida State University and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare have approved the framework of a long-planned partnership that would create an academic health center and slowly rebrand the hospital to FSU Health.
TMH's board of directors voted unanimously Monday to proceed with the framework for the partnership, according to a joint announcement from TMH and FSU.
Under the agreement, announced Tuesday, FSU and TMH will work with the city of Tallahassee on the transfer of the hospital assets to FSU, including the 75-acre property, 2 million-square-foot hospital building, and related assets.
According to the university, it is anticipated that FSU will lease the assets to TMH under a 40-year lease and operating agreement. TMH will remain the licensed operator of the hospital, preserving its independent, tax-exempt status, while collaborating with FSU through research, branding, academic and clinical agreements. Also, workers would not shift to state employment.
“For both institutions, maintaining the hospital as a locally based, locally governed health care system remained paramount,” the announcement said. “The new agreement is structured to preserve the hospital’s community mission while expanding its reach as an academic health center.”
Additional agreements will have to be finalized in the coming months, and the partnership still needs to be approved by the Tallahassee City Commission.
City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow has been one of the loudest voices against it. He told WFSU he does not think the city should lose a locally controlled asset to a state-controlled authority like FSU,
"It's a billion dollar public asset that's owned by the people of Tallahassee, and the fact that we would just, like, hand it over or transfer it to state government and (Gov.) Ron DeSantis in this climate seems kind of insane to me," he said.
Supporters of the sale have argued it could lead to economic development, jobs and improved medical access in Tallahassee and the Panhandle, similar to the effect UF Health has had on North Central Florida.
City Commissioner Jack Porter wrote in a statement that she wants to see more voices and public debate brought to the table before the city makes a final decision.
"We want the best deal for the city residents, whose health care costs have funded TMH since the beginning and we want to make sure to get the best deal possible for taxpayers, local governance and public healthcare," she wrote in a statement.
Commissioner Dianne Williams-Cox said she is cautiously optimistic about the progress.
"I look forward to the next steps," she wrote in a text to WFSU Public Media.
Commissioner Curtis Richardson told WFSU he sees nothing but good things coming out of the partnership, both in terms of healthcare access and the region's economy.
"It will be able to offer additional care for those in the area, and those specialty areas that people now have to go out of the area to receive. It will be able to provide increased indigent care for those who are under insured or uninsured in our area. And so I see nothing but positives coming out of this for our community and for our region," he said.
Richardson, Williams-Cox and Mayor John Dailey have previously sided with the university on other large policy decisions, like a $27 million Blueprint allocation for renovations to Doak Campbell Stadium in 2022.
The idea of transforming TMH into an academic health center has been under discussion for more than a decade. In 2021, the TMH and FSU boards approved a strategic alignment plan that laid out plans for the partnership.
"This bold initiative not only expands our frontiers in education, research and health care, but also promises to revolutionize future access to advanced, high-quality care for our community. We look forward to presenting our plan to the city of Tallahassee in the coming days," FSU president Richard McCullough said in a statement.
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