• Seton Healthcare Family received a $25 million matching gift from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to help build a new teaching hospital in Austin, Texas. Plans call for the Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas to open in 2017. Michael Dell is the founder and CEO of Dell Computers Inc. His wife Susan is co-founder and chair of the Dell foundation board.

Appointments

• Maribeth McLaughlin, R.N., CNO and vice president of patient care services at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC in Pittsburgh, will lead the AHA’s Constituency Section for Maternal and Child Health as 2015 chair of its governing council. Jim Shmerling, president and CEO of Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, is this year’s chair-elect and will become chair in 2016.

• The Joint Commission appointed David W. Baker, M.D., executive vice president for the division of health care quality evaluation. He had been chief of the division of general internal medicine and geriatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and deputy director of its Institute for Public Health and Medicine. John D. Cochran, M.D. was named to the newly created position of clinical director of the Joint Commission’s laboratory services accreditation program. He has been a surveyor for the Joint Commission since 2011.

• Fred Gattas Jr. and Margaret Wagner Dahl will be chair and chair-elect, respectively, for the American Hospital Association’s 2015 Committee on Governance. Gattas, who recently was board secretary, is a trustee at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Dahl is a board member at WellStar Health Network ACO in Marietta, Ga.

• Donato J. Stinghen, M.D., was named associate chief medical officer of Alameda (Calif.) Hospital, in January. He has been a practicing vascular surgeon at the General Vascular Surgery Medical Group in San Leandro, Calif.
Stepping Down

• Peter E. Geier, COO of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and CEO of the Ohio State University Health System, will step down Dec. 1. Geier said his resignation will allow him to devote more time to outside boards, consulting and teaching. The medical center recruited Geier in 2001 to help improve its operating efficiency and financial operations. He has served as CEO of the university health system since 2003. Geier is working with Sheldon Retchin, who became executive vice president and CEO of Wexner Medical Center on March 1.

Acquisitions

• Kindred Healthcare Inc. has completed its acquisition of Gentiva Health Services Inc. in a transaction valued at $1.8 billion, including the assumption of net debt. The combination of Kindred and Gentiva will make Kindred at Home the largest and most geographically diversified home health and hospice organization in the United States. This comes just one month after completing the acquisition of Centerre Healthcare Corporation, a strong rehabilitation hospital provider, which added 11 inpatient rehabilitation facilities to Kindred’s network of services. The combined company will serve more than 1.1 million patients per year in 47 states.

• LifePoint Hospitals has completed the acquisition of Nason Hospital, Roaring Spring, Pa. As part of the acquisition, Nason Hospital has become part of Johnstown-based Conemaugh Health System. Under the terms of the acquisition, LifePoint will invest $8.5 million in capital improvements at Nason over the next 10 years. This will include investments in physician recruitment, technology upgrades, new equipment and renovations. The proceeds from the acquisition will be used to retire the hospital’s financial obligations, and approximately $3 million will fund the hospital’s charitable foundation. In addition, as part of LifePoint, Nason will become a local taxpayer.

• Abington (Pa.) Health and Jefferson, Philadelphia, have reached a definitive agreement to merge the two organizations to form a new enterprise. The definitive agreement outlines a shared governance model with equal representation from Jefferson and Abington on a newly established board. In addition, there will be two trustees who have no previous relationship with either organization. The shared leadership approach will be modeled throughout the new organization, with a focus on clinical integration. The final step in the process is for the organizations to obtain the necessary state and federal regulatory approvals which expected to be completed later in 2015.