Baylor University Regents Approve Baylor Health Care System Agreement

WACO, Texas - Baylor University regents today approved an agreement with Baylor Health Care System that will ensure a continuing cooperative relationship between the two organizations. The Baylor Health Care System Board of Trustees approved the agreement on May 8 in Dallas.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed because of a confidentiality statement agreed upon by both parties. But the agreement ensures funding for the university to:
- Build a new Student Health Center and support its ongoing operations;
- Provide additional scholarships for students pursuing health-related professions;
- Support its School of Nursing, which is housed at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas;
- Continue its Institute for Biomedical Studies, which is jointly operated on the Waco campus by the medical center and the university.
The agreement includes dissolution rights should all or substantially all of the health care system be sold in the future. It also gives the system the freedom to appoint its own board, subject to the requirement that all members be Baptists. Both the health care system and the university are affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Terms of the arrangement also address concerns raised by Texas Attorney General Dan Morales.
Both Baylor President and CEO Robert B. Sloan Jr. and Baylor Health Care System President and CEO Boone Powell Jr. expressed satisfaction with the agreement.
"The agreement allows both organizations to focus on their mission - education for the university and health care for the Baylor Health Care System," Powell said.
"We are very pleased with the outcome of this discussion," Sloan said. "Baylor looks forward to many more years of fruitful cooperation with the health care system."