$100 Million Gift
to Enhance Penn Medicine

The Philadelphia Health Care Trust (PHCT) and the University, have announced an agreement to establish a $100 million endowment by PHCT to support the patient care, research and education programs of Penn Medicine.

Under the terms of the agreement, PHCT, under the leadership of Chairman Bernard J. Korman, will transfer all its assets to the University as a restricted endowment to be used to benefit the programs of Penn Medicine. Specifically, the agreement provides that, for a seven-year period, the income generated by the $100 million of PHCT assets will be distributed partly to support Penn Medicine programs and partly to support existing and future PHCT charitable undertakings. At the end of the seven-year period, the assets of Philadelphia Health Care Trust will be transferred to Penn.

Mr. Korman, who took his B.S. in economics at Penn in 1952 and his J.D. here in 1955, recently joined Penn Medicine's Board of Trustees as Vice Chairman, as well as a member of its Executive Committee and Chair of its Finance Committee. Joining the Board of PHCT will be Dr. Arthur H. Rubenstein, EVP of UPHS and Dean of the School of Medicine, and Dr. Robert D. Martin, CEO of UPHS.

"We are profoundly grateful to the Philadelphia Health Care Trust for its generous gift, which represents a significant endorsement of the Penn Medicine governance structure to effectively integrate the three-part mission of our academic medical center," said President Judith Rodin. "The programs of Penn Medicine will be substantially enriched--both financially and intellectually--as a result of this agreement and Bernie Korman's significant contributions in his new leadership role with Penn Medicine. The philanthropic vision of this gift will permit the University of Pennsylvania Health System to obtain the ideal synergy among its educational, research and clinical missions--which will lead to more and better discoveries and advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and disability."

"On behalf of the Philadelphia Health Care Trust, I am pleased to recognize and support the role of Penn Medicine as a superbly crafted and effective governance structure for a complex academic medical center," said Mr. Korman. "Our Board believes that PHCT's total commitment to support Penn Medicine is the most productive use for the entirety of the assets with which we have been entrusted. We believe Penn Medicine will become the ‘gold standard' for the governance of other university-based health systems and that its successful implementation will lead to improved patient care."

The Philadelphia Health Care Trust, created in 1998 as a charitable organization to support advances in healthcare delivery, education, and research, traces its roots to the academic medical mission of the University of Pennsylvania. PHCT emerged from the former Graduate Health System that emanated from the Graduate Hospital, which was spun off from Penn in 1975. The assets of PHCT originated from the sale of the for-profit Greater Atlantic Health System when it was sold in 1995 to Health System International.

Penn Medicine was established in November 2001 by the Trustees of the University as the single governing body for UPHS--which consists of four wholly-owned hospitals (HUP, Pennsylvania Hospital, Presbyterian Medical Center, and Phoenixville Hospital), the School of Medicine, the Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania (the faculty practice plan), Clinical Care Associates (a primary-care network), two satellite facilities (Penn Medicine at Radnor and Penn Medicine at Limerick), and hospice and home care. Penn Medicine's Board of Trustees, led by David L. Cohen, Esq., is charged with creating and operating a fully integrated system for medical education, biomedical research, and clinical care.

The creation of Penn Medicine comes during a period of continued development for the University and its Health System. In September, Penn appointed Dr. Arthur H. Rubenstein as the singular head of its Health System and School of Medicine--to serve as Executive Vice President and Dean, respectively. Before joining Penn, Dr. Rubenstein was Dean of Mount Sinai's School of Medicine, in New York. With the launch of Penn Medicine, the Health System "gained the additional structural flexibility it needed to succeed in a dynamically fluid and highly competitive marketplace," said President Rodin.