STAT+: General Catalyst wants to take over a safety-net health system in Akron. The city has questions
The venture capital firm’s experiment is facing hurdles even before it has started as the local community asks questions about its plans.
General Catalysts’s grand vision for a venture capital-owned hospital system seamlessly blending AI and tech into everyday appointments and rewarding staff for keeping patients healthy might sound alluring. But the firm’s bold experiment is facing hurdles even before it has started as the community served by the health system it hopes to buy is pushing back.
The Health Assurance Transformation Corp., a General Catalyst entity known as HATCo, unveiled plans last month to acquire Akron safety net provider Summa Health. But since the announcement, residents and local officials have raised questions about who the deal benefits, and who gets left behind.
On Thursday, the Mayor of Akron plans to press HATCo’s chief executive, Marc Harrison, who previously led Intermountain Health, on whether his plan is a profit play or a longer-term investment in the community. At the forefront are citizens’ concerns that the deal will drive up costs, eliminate jobs, reduce the quality of care or even shutter one of just two major hospital systems in the area, about a fifth of whose patients are on Medicaid.
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