Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSisters of St. Francis Health Services Inc., which operates three hospitals in the Indianapolis area, has decided to change its name to Franciscan Alliance.
The Mishawaka-based system, which has 13 hospitals in Indiana and Illinois, announced the decision of its board of directors Monday morning. The announcement comes after months of consumer research—and six months after rival system Clarian Health said it would change its name to Indiana University Health.
Beginning in early 2011, all St. Francis hospitals will have the name Franciscan added to their logos, with the historic name of each hospital written below it. For example, St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers in Indianapolis will now be called Franciscan/St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers in Indianapolis.
The logos will keep the Tau, a symbol of Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century Catholic saint for whom the hospital system is named.
The new name is expected to "broaden awareness of the system’s comprehensive, high-quality health care services and highly regarded compassionate care,” Sister M. Jane Marie Klein, chairwoman of the hospital system’s board of trustees, said in a statement. The hospital system is a not-for-profit entity owned by the order of nuns, the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration.
“With the many dramatic changes taking place across the nation’s health care landscape, a simple, but meaningful, unified name better affirms our standing as a large, multi-state Catholic health care system with nationally recognized centers of excellence and numerous joint ventures and physician relationships,” Franciscan Alliance CEO Kevin Leahy said.
The Franciscan Alliance employs 18,200, including 556 physicians, and it expects to grow its physician team to more than 630 physicians next year.
It will take about a year for the hospital system to fully transition all its signage, said spokesman Joe Stuteville.
Clarian Health has said its name change also will take effect in early 2011.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.