Merger Games: The Medical College of Pennsylvania, Hahnemann University, and the Rise and Fall of the Allegheny Healthcare System

Prologue. “Honoring the Past, Creating the Future”

acknowledgments m any people gave me invaluable help in the course of writing this book and in conducting the study that preceded it. i am indebted to the Acadia institute project staff for their many contributions that made the project possible: Carla m. messikomer, vicki leeman Hall, Judith C. Watkins, richard i. emmett, Athena mcClean, Deborah thomas, and Cindy Werz. my appreciative thanks, as well, to our project consultants, leonard l. Baird, Delores Brisbon, Willy De Craemer, renée C. Fox, marshall meyer, and edward J. stemmler, for the expertise and time they shared with the staff, and to leonard l. ross, for proposing that the Acadia institute conduct a study of the merger and securing much of the financial support that made it possible. As is true for any ethnographic study, carrying out our research would not have been possible without the cooperation of the many individuals at the mCp-Hu school of medicine, the other schools in the Allegheny university of the Health sciences, the Allegheny Health, education and research Foundation, and others involved in medical education and health care, who so generously shared their perspectives with us and encouraged us in our work. in addition to the interviews, observations, and primary source materials that formed the core of our data, we drew on a large body of published papers, reports, books, and media coverage. Works that were particularly informative for relating this story to the larger contexts of merger arenas included the books by Anthony Buono xiv / Acknowledgments and James l. Bowditch, John A. Kastor, and price pritchett. Kenneth m. ludmerer’s books on medical schools and medical education in the united states provided an analytically powerful understanding of many of the larger forces affecting the efforts to combine Hahnemann and mCp. the histories of the Woman’s medical College and the medical College of pennsylvania by steven J. peitzman and of Hahnemann medical College by naomi rogers shed light on the often tumultuous development of these institutions that underlay many of their characteristics at the time of their merger. Our efforts to track and grasp the complexities involved in Allegheny’s bankruptcy, and its larger implications, also benefited greatly from the detailed analysis by lawton r. Burns and his colleagues at the university of pennsylvania’s Wharton Center for Health management and economics. Carla messikomer’s and my understanding of the merger, its unfolding , and the rise and fall of the Allegheny health care system was enriched by the detailed coverage and analyses of these events by journalists in philadelphia and pittsburgh. in particular, we gained both information and insights from the writings by Jeff Gammage, Josh Goldstein, and Karl stark in the Philadelphia Inquirer; paul Davies in the Philadelphia Daily News; and pamela Gaynor, Andrea Gerlin, steve massey, and Chris snowbeck in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. my keeping abreast of media reports was greatly facilitated by Gail Glicksman’s steadfast attention to accounts in the philadelphia newspapers and the innumerable stories that she sent me. this book took shape over several years and went through many drafts. mere words cannot adequately express my gratitude to renée C. Fox for her patient scrutiny and comments on these drafts, leonard H. Glantz for his careful reading of many chapters, and William J. Hickey for his thoughtful review of the manuscript. i am indebted to micah Kleit, executive editor at temple university press, for the advocacy that resulted in a contract with the press and for his invaluable editorial work. A substantial portion of the study was made possible by grants from the Acadia institute, the Charles e. Culpeper Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (menlo park, California), and the Office of the provost of the former Allegheny university of the Health sciences. the perspectives presented in the book are mine and do not reflect any views of the funders. Finally, i gratefully acknowledge permission to quote materials from the following sources: Beard Books, for A. F. Buono and J. l. Bowditch. 1989. The human side of mergers and acquisitions. Managing collisions between people, cultures, and organizations. san Francisco: Jossey-Bass. mcGraw-Hill Companies, for price pritchett. 1985. After the merger: Managing the shockwaves. Homewood, il: Dow Jones-irwin. Philadelphia Business Journal, for “Will Hahnemann sale hurt city?” [editorial]. 1993. november 19–25:24. Acknowledgments / xv K. stark and J. Gammage. 1999. sherif Abdelhak, the man who bankrupted Allegheny and Hahnemann...