New England Sinai Hospital, one of the state’s largest post-acute institutions, has hired financial consultants and essentially put itself on the block. The Stoughton hospital, which operates 212 beds, has lost money in each of its last three fiscal years.
Among the interested potential suitors: Local giants Partners Healthcare and Steward Health Care System. Both Partners and Steward were approached by New England Sinai’s consultants and signed confidentiality agreements to advance in the process, according to people familiar with the talks.
Officials from Partners and Steward declined to comment yesterday.
Judith Waterston, the president of New England Sinai, confirmed the hospital had engaged an adviser to “evaluate strategic partnership opportunities’’ but declined to discuss negotiations.
New England Sinai may be attractive to other acquires as well. Several big companies operate post-acute facilities nationwide, including Kindred Healthcare and Select Medical.
But the Stoughton hospital presents both Partners and Steward with unusual opportunities to grow in the Massachusetts market.
Partners, the blue-chip health care giant that operates Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, finds itself increasingly butting heads with Steward, the private-equity backed medical upstart that has built a network of 10 Massachusetts hospitals and hundreds of doctors in just over a year.
A Globe report yesterday detailed Steward’s latest coup, luring a big South Shore doctors group away from the Partners network. Now Steward and Partners are both sizing up another kind of medical resource.
Partners is an established leader in post-acute care provided by its Spaulding Rehabilitation Network. Spaulding operates its flagship hospital in Boston, and it acquired Youville Hospital (renamed Spaulding Hospital Cambridge) two years ago. It also operates eight other smaller rehab facilities in greater Boston.
