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| Type | Public company NYSE: THC |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1967 |
| Headquarters | Dallas, Texas |
| Key people | Trevor Fetter, President/CEO Biggs C. Porter, CFO |
| Industry | Healthcare |
| Services | Hospital management |
| Revenue | ▲$8,701,000,000 USD (2006) |
| Operating income | ▼$787,000,000 USD (2006) |
| Net income | ▼$803,000,000 USD (2006) |
| Employees | 74,000 (2005) |
| Website | http://www.tenethealth.com/ |
| 2006 Consolidated Report | |
Tenet Healthcare Corporation (THC) is an operating company that owns and operates 57 hospitals in the United States 1. It is based in Dallas, Texas. Its stock ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange is NYSE: THC.[1]
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History
Tenet Healthcare Corporation was created in March 1995 through the merger of health care pioneer National Medical Enterprises (NME), Inc. and the parent company of American Medical International (AMI), Inc., which was founded in 1960 as the nation’s first investor-owned hospital management company.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Tenet grew through the acquisition of a number of forprofit and not-for-profit hospitals and hospital systems, ultimately becoming the second largest investor-owned health care company in the United States.
In 2003, a new senior leadership team, led by President and Chief Executive Officer Trevor Fetter, was established to guide Tenet’s turnaround as it addressed a number of significant challenges.
The heart of Tenet’s strategy is quality. In 2003, the company launched Commitment to Quality, a multi-faceted program with targeted initiatives designed to drive quality throughout the entire organization, including critical areas such as clinical quality, patient care, patient safety, nursing practices and medical staff governance.
Tenet also recognized the challenges posed by the nation’s growing number of uninsured patients and took an industry-leading role in helping the uninsured receive quality, affordable care. In 2003, Tenet launched its Compact with Uninsured Patients, an initiative that offers managed care-style discount pricing to patients without insurance. Tenet’s strategy is to invest in its core hospitals and to pursue targeted growth opportunities in these core markets. Since 2004, the company has seen improvement in its quality and cost-control efforts, as well as progress in the rates it negotiates with managed care customers.
In June 2006, Tenet closed the chapter on many of its legacy issues when the company announced a broad settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that concluded a number of investigations by U.S. attorneys across the country. The settlement, along with the announcement of the divestiture of 11 hospitals, has put the company on the path to future profitability.
Following the settlement, Tenet enhanced its capital spending at its core hospitals to approximately $800 million in 2006. The additional capital focuses on technology and patient care enhancements such as multi-slice CT scaners, new or expanded heart catheterization labs and magnetic resonance imaging machines (MRIs).
Tenet, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates acute care hospitals and related health care services. Quality is the cornerstone of the company’s business strategy. This includes the quality of the care provided at Tenet hospitals; the quality of service provided to patients, physicians and communities; and the quality of employees and the thousands of tasks they perform every day at its hospitals.
Controversy
On October 12, 2005, CNN reported that the Louisiana attorney general is investigating the possibility that mercy killings of critically ill patients by staff medical professionals at Memorial Medical Center, New Orleans occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. On September 13, Tenet issued a statement: "No patients drowned nor did any die as a result of lack of food or drinking water." (CNN) (BusinessWire)
Apparently, 24 of the patients were part of a Hospice unit run by LifeCare, a company that was renting the seventh floor at Memorial hospital. The staff of LifeCare abandoned their stations leaving Tenet to care for the Hospice patients. During this period, as expected, 24 of the Hospice patients died. Tenet workers placed these corpses (numbering in the 20-30 range) in the chapel (since the morgue was now full) along with all their records for subsequent pickup once things started to return to normal in New Orleans.
In August 2007, a New Orleans grand jury declined to indict a doctor and two nurses who worked at Memorial Medical Center in the aftermath of Katrina. In 2006, the three women had been taken from their homes late at night in a highly publicized arrest orchestrated by Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti. After the grand jury declined to return charges, a New Orleans judge expunged the women's arrest records. The doctor is suing Foti for defamation and damage to her career.
Bloomberg reported on June 30, 2006 that Tenet has agreed to pay $725 million in cash and give up $175 million in fees to resolve claims it defrauded the federal government for its over-billing of medicare claims during six years of the 1990s. To finance the settlement, it plans to sell 11 hospitals in four states. [2]
The book Coronary by author Stephen Klaidman alleges over 600 patients were subjected to unnecessary heart surgeries at the Redding Medical Center, a former Tenet hospital.
References
- ^ http://www.tenethealth.com/NR/rdonlyres/EF12B98A-39D0-44F9-89DC-58F52837B57B/112815/FactSheetColor_0207_revised.pdf
External links
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- This page was last modified on 25 November 2008, at 18:10.
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