Lifespan and Brown University renew their vows with rebranding and investment

Lifespan CEO John Fernandez joked that he’s ‘the worst looking Vanna White’ as he unveiled the new logo for Brown University Health at a press conference at Hasbro Children’s Hospital on June 20, 2024. (Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

Brown University plans to invest $150 million over the next seven years in Rhode Island’s largest health system under a name change announced Thursday.

Brown and Lifespan have been affiliated since 1969, and the latter’s Rhode Island Hospital serves as the teaching hospital for Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School. The newly expanded agreements would rechristen Lifespan as Brown University Health later this year and lead to the setting of the familiar Lifespan sun logo.

John Fernandez, president and CEO of Lifespan, said the two organizations will still maintain separate governing bodies during a press conference in the lobby of Hasbro Children’s Hospital.

Dozens of Lifespan employees gathered on the floor above the lobby and looked down to the stage where Fernandez and Brown University President Christina H. Paxson spoke.

“The affiliation agreements will help us attract the very best physicians, residents, medical school students and other health care professionals who work in the state,” Paxson said. “And as we do this, we will continue to improve the health of families in Rhode Island, both through advances in the medical care that people receive and the state of our medical training for physicians generations to come, many of whom will remain in this state to continue treating patients.”

The university will divide the multimillion-dollar funding into investments of $15 million to $25 million annually, relieving pressure on Lifespan’s operating costs, which have suffered from Rhode Island’s low physician reimbursement rates.

After seven years of Brown’s investments, the arrangement will flip: Lifespan will contribute $15 million a year to Warren Alpert Medical School, the state’s lone medical school. Brown’s investment office will also oversee $600 million to $800 million of Lifespan’s investment portfolio, with the investments gradually phased in over four years.

The strengthened bond also unites the two organizations in their goals for academic medicine and research. The enhanced agreements will beef up Lifespan’s delivery of care and enlarge its role in medical research, Fernandez said. The money will go toward physician recruitment as well as improvement of facilities and Lifespan’s Community Health Institute. Lifespan’s electronic medical records system would also see upgrades.

At a May 28 health care summit at the Rhode Island State House, Fernandez said that, in almost any other state, a hospital the size of Rhode Island Hospital or The Miriam Hospital would be at least partially funded by public funds.

“I am running a public hospital and a public service and proud of it,” Fernandez said then.

The notion of a public hospital sans public funding caused Attorney General Peter Neronha to rise from his seat in the audience that day. Later on, Neronha used the financial maladies of Rhode Island’s hospitals to illustrate the health care system’s overall sickness.

Laughter’s the best medicine. But health care summit prompts serious discussion

And yet, in 2022, Neronha’s office did not approve Lifespan’s merger with Care New England, the state’s second largest hospital network. The attorney general is tasked with approving in-state corporate mergers as means of fulfilling antitrust laws, which encourage competition and prevent the formation of monopolies. There is also specific state law regarding hospital acquisition and restructuring, called the Hospital Conversions Act (HCA).

Part of the act’s provisions is protecting public health and quality of care across changes in hospital ownership. So what did the AG think of Brown and Lifespan’s substantive changes to its friendship?

“Based upon the information and representations provided by the parties, the Office determined that the proposed transaction did not implicate our HCA or antitrust authorities,” said Brian Hodge, a spokesperson for Neronha’s office, in an email Thursday, and pointed to a June 17 letter that Neronha sent to Lifespan and Brown.

Still, Neronha’s letter noted his office expects to be notified if there are any “changes that involve Lifespan sharing competitive information with Brown or BPI (Brown Physicians Inc.)”

The partnership is also notable for its matrimony of two of Providence’s largest nonprofits, both of which have sparred with Mayor Brett Smiley over payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, agreements. Brown has PILOT agreements in place with the city, but Lifespan does not. In April, Smiley wagged a finger at Lifespan in his annual budget speech and prodded the hospital system to pay its fair share.

“Negotiations with Lifespan have been ongoing since last year and will continue until we reach a deal that is responsible and fair for the taxpayers of Providence,” said Josh Estrella, a city spokesperson, via email. “The expanded affiliation agreement announced today between Brown University and Lifespan is not anticipated to impact these negotiations. The Administration looks forward to a positive future impact resulting from the expanded affiliation agreement.”

Here goes the sun

Lifespan employees gathered at the press conference sported ID badges with an apple green color scheme. That verdancy will be swapped out in the transition to Brown University Health: The new moniker’s logo and color scheme, unveiled halfway through the event, are dominated by a light turquoise a color closer to medical scrubs.

Design firm Nail, known for their “Fun-sized” state tourism campaign , created the new brand’s logo, said Kathleen Hart, a Lifespan spokesperson, in an email. Lifespan’s marketing and communications department will continue to take the lead on the brand’s overall design elements.

The new logo includes the Brown University crest and its sharp-rayed sun. But this brand refresh means another superhot orb will fizzle out: The Brown sun will replace the current Lifespan logo, which is also a sun. The venerable Rhode Island designer Malcolm Grear created the Lifespan sun icon, composed of multiple italic letter L’s arranged in a circle. Grear used a similar tactic on the Health and Human Services seal for the U.S. government, which stacks several human faces into the shape of an eagle.

The name change’s exact date is still undetermined, and the rebrand is anticipated to take several years before it’s complete. When a reporter asked about the rebrand’s tentative cost, an employee in the audience looked at his coworker and nodded vigorously. Fernandez approached the podium.

“We do not have a price yet to share,” the CEO said. “But it’s a lot of work, and it costs money. But I think it will make us better and it’s a really good investment over the longer term.”

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