Anne Saker

asaker@enquirer.com

TriHealth and Xavier University, two of Greater Cincinnati’s leading health and educational institutions with a long relationship with each other, pledged Thursday to a broad, sweeping experiment to improve the health of a college campus.

Beacon Orthopedic, a major regional private medical practice that provides medical services to XU athletics, will join the effort, officials announced at a news conference at the Cintas Center.

A team of XU faculty, staff and students will start work this month with TriHealth leaders and clinicians to design the new fitness center, said TriHealth spokesman Joe Kelley. The project size and cost has not yet been determined, but the new facility will be on Cleneay Avenue and Musketeer Drive near residence halls and Cintas Center. The target opening date is fall 2019.

The new center will replace the O'Connor Sports Center, built in 1976 and located on the west side of the XU campus north of Victory Parkway and Dana Avenue. A desire to replace O'Connor was one reason that XU began a process a few years ago to seek health care providers as partners, said Rev. Michael J. Graham, XU's president.

But Xavier also wanted to boost its existing academic offerings in health care, as well as improve the health of its staff and students and the care for its student-athletes, he said. The idea to "put it together" in one package with a sponsor was the idea of XU's trustees, Graham said in an interview. The new center will have academic classrooms related to health and wellness.

The decision to extend the partnership between XU and TriHealth made sense because "teaching and healing are very much at the core" of both organizations, Graham told about 200 people at a news conference announcing the alliance.

XU and TriHealth are also major religious institutions in Cincinnati, and for the past 20 years, they have maintained a close business and medical relationship. They developed and built University Station in Norwood, which features the TriHealth medical practices Queen City Adult and nearby Bethesda Family Medicine.

The health care system already works with XU to develop education and training and provides support with Beacon at Xavier sports events, said Kelley. Xavier students can use concierge services at TriHealth’s hospitals, and TriHealth leaders serve on Xavier boards.

Under the expanded partnership, TriHealth will provide services to 18,000 Xavier faculty, staff and their dependents that will extend beyond traditional health care, said Mark Clement, TriHealth’s chief executive officer. "Now you see your doctor when you sick" and you don't see them again until you're sick again," said Clement, an XU graduate. In the new model, the focus will be on encouraging health and preventing problems while also getting better outcomes.

TriHealth already provides traditional wellness services for more than 3,000 local employers ranging from Fortune 500 companies to "mom and pop store," Clement said. The health system wants to offer services similar to those it will provide to XU to more employers.

Officials also believe the closer relationship will lead to more medical leadership programs.

Over the past 10 years, TriHealth has produced more than 275 fellowship and residency graduates, many of them from Xavier’s Health Services Administration programs.

The plan also aims to support Xavier’s nationally ranked athletics program by expanding the sports-medicine team and enhancing the clinical care model for student athletes.

Finally, the affiliation will lead to better primary care on campus. “All this together gives everyone the ability to imagine and implement a bold mission on how health and wellness should be integrated on a campus for a more vibrant community,” Kelley said.

The TriHealth-Xavier announcement is the second recent investment by a local health system into a local college campus. St. Elizabeth Healthcare has contributed $8 million for a two-story medical simulation center now under construction at Northern Kentucky University.