VOL. 23, NO. 1	SEPTEMBER 5, 1997

Bruce Spivey

olumbia-Cornell Care LLC has announced that Bruce Spivey will become president and chief executive officer effective Oct. 1. Spivey currently is president and chief executive officer of Northwestern Healthcare Network in Chicago, Ill.

  Columbia-Cornell Care is a new venture that combines the clinical faculties of Columbia's College of Physicians & Surgeons and Cornell's Medical College, along with their community physician partners. This partnership will provide managed care contracting, practice management, medical management and a full array of support services for its membership.

  Spivey, a CEO with an extensive background in healthcare administration, was selected based on his vast experience, which includes establishing and directing one of the largest not-for profit healthcare systems in the United States.

  President George Rupp praised the incoming CEO: "Dr. Bruce Spivey is eminently qualified, and joins us as this important new physician partnership prepares for the next century of medical leadership." Hunter Rawlings III, president of Cornell, stressed that Spivey's leadership of Columbia-Cornell Care "will link the clinical strengths of superb physician groups in a unique way and make them more competitive in a changing healthcare environment."

  The partnership between Columbia and Cornell formally began Nov. 27, 1996, when officials at both universities agreed to align their medical faculties to contract for managed care. The partnership is designed to increase market competitiveness for physicians by joining two leading clinical faculties and their community physician partners. Different from typical physician organizations, Columbia-Cornell Care will have "single signature authority" on behalf of its physicians to contract with managed care payors. The medical schools at both universities will remain independent. To date, approximately 1,500 physicians from Columbia and Cornell have joined Columbia-Cornell Care LLC.

  The primary teaching hospitals of the two medical schools, Presbyterian Hospital (Columbia) and The New York Hospital (Cornell) are merging as The New York and Presbyterian Hospitals Inc. The New York and Presbyterian Hospitals Inc. and its community hospital partners will be a contracting partner with Columbia-Cornell Care.

  According to Herbert Pardes, vice president for health sciences and dean of the faculty of medicine at Columbia, "Bruce Spivey's expertise in conceptualizing and overseeing the development of a physician-governed organization, as well as his leadership in several successful mergers between hospitals and physicians associations, made him our first choice to lead Columbia-Cornell Care. Managed care continues to penetrate the New York area, and we are confident that Dr. Spivey will successfully lead us in furthering a powerful alliance in the healthcare marketplace."

  Antonio M. Gotto Jr., provost for medical affairs at Cornell and the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Cornell's Medical College, agrees: "Bruce Spivey is superbly qualified to be CEO of Columbia-Cornell Care, based on his experience and background at Northwestern Healthcare in Chicago. We are pleased to announce Spivey s appointment, especially in view of the very exuberant endorsement he receives from physicians who have worked with him."

  A board-certified ophthalmologist, Spivey was the first CEO of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and is the former president of the American Board of Medical Specialties and the California Healthcare System in San Francisco.

  "I look forward to the challenges—and opportunities—the new healthcare environment presents in New York. I am confident that Columbia-Cornell Care has the capacity, building on the superb care its outstanding physicians provide, to be the market leader in this region," he said.