Flailing Arizona Heart gives green light to Vanguard acquisition

The Arizona Heart Institute has endorsed a pending agreement with Vanguard Health Systems in Nashville, Tenn., to purchase both the Arizona Heart Hospital and Arizona Heart Institute. Prior to this proposed takeover, the institute had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The deal would make the 59-bed Arizona Heart Hospital and the Arizona Heart Institute, an outpatient physician practice, part of Vanguard’s Abrazo Healthcare System that currently comprises five hospitals throughout Phoenix.

The institute, founded in 1971 in Phoenix, is selling its assets to Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanguard in a deal valued at nearly $6.1 million, according to the Associated Press.

The new partnership would help to streamline patient care and would allow the organizations to better leverage capital and management skills, said Edward B. Diethrich, MD, founder and medical director of the Arizona Heart Institute and Arizona Heart Hospital.

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