A large group of UMRA members gathered for the January UMRA Breakfast meeting  to learn more about the relationship between the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Physicians (UMP), and Fairview Health Services. 

UMRA member and UMRA Past President (2020-21) Frank Cerra, MD, emeritus professor of surgery, former dean of the University Medical School and senior vice president (1996–2011) of the Academic Health Center (AHC), gave an overview of the history of these three groups:

1. In 1970, the previously autonomous College of Pharmacy and School of Dentistry were reorganized—together with the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health, and University Hospital—into the centrally organized and administered AHC. The College of Veterinary Medicine was incorporated into the AHC in 1985. The goal was to promote synergy among research, education, and clinical practice between faculty and schools to benefit the health of the people of Minnesota.
2. UMP (now M Physicians) was formed in 1997 out of all the different medical departments to simplify the contracts process and ensure that medical faculty received competitive compensation, and to move the risk of medical liability outside the University. The focus of the multi-specialty group practice is on academic medicine and patient care.
3. In the early 1990s, HMO insurance plans stopped covering medical research and education, contributing to the financial trouble for the University hospital system (University Hospital aka University of Minnesota Medical Center and Masonic Children’s Hospital). Multiple alternatives were evaluated to no avail.  Subsequentially, Fairview came forward to purchase the system, and in 1999 a 25-year contract was formed between the three groups: the University, UMP, and Fairview.

“There was a mesh of mission,” Cerra said. “A shared focus on research, education, and patient care.”

Why are we where we are today?

According to Cerra, who retired from the University in 2011, the biggest issues in the deterioration of this contract were in leadership and communication. Presidents and CEOs changed, the connection between the Fairview Board and the Board of Regents frayed, and relationships with state government decreased. Also, the entities involved disagreed about the cost of education and research, and there was a cultural schism between an academic institution and a community health care system. 

“It’s all about relationships, including at the Legislature and with the governor,” Cerra said. “And the commitment of leadership to the art of the possible, to getting things done.”

At the time of the UMRA breakfast, the parties involved were in mediation to attempt a resolution of the situation and to define a mutually agreeable path forward.

—Lynn Slifer, UMRA Breakfast meeting facilitator