Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

After nearly two years of fits and starts, it looks like plans to unite the state's two hospital groups into a seven-hospital conglomerate is back on track.

Lifespan and Care New England on Thursday afternoon submitted 110,000 pages of documents to the Department of Health and the Office of the Attorney General.

Those documents comprise the application to form a single company -- to be called Lifespan -- overseeing Rhode Island, Miriam, Bradley, Newport, Women & Infants, Kent and Butler hospitals.

The new entity would dominate the hospital marketplace in Rhode Island, but the Federal Trade Commission has determined that it would not violate antitrust laws.

In a significant change, the current proposal no longer calls for the sale or development of the Butler Hospital campus, citing the decline in the real estate market.

The hospitals announced their plans to affiliate on July 26, 2007. In June 2008, they started submitting their application (then a mere 55,000 pages) but quickly ran into disagreements with regulators about the wording of certain documents and attempts to keep some things confidential.

The application was never accepted, and months passed with no action -- fueling speculation that the merger was off.

On Wednesday, hospital officials affirmed their commitment to the proposal. Spokeswoman Linda Shelton said that the disagreements with regulators had been resolved. She acknowledged that hospitals did "look at a legislation solution" but ultimately decided to meet the terms of the arduous Hospital Conversions Act.

"We're really looking forward to a public debate about the merits of the affiliation," Shelton said.

Now, the health director and attorney general have 30 days to request any additional information in the application, and the hospitals have 30 days after that to supply it. If they do, the regulators have 10 days after that point to declare whether the application is complete.

Then the nitty-gritty examination of the plan -- which will include public hearings -- will commence.

 Tags  Care New England hospital mergers Lifespan

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