Westwood ? It seems there should have been champagne.

Nearly 18 months after launching negotiations over a new affiliation between Kansas University Medical Center and KU Hospital, the two parties finally have reached an agreement that everyone can live with.

At a special meeting this morning, the KU Hospital Authority board approved the agreement and gave CEO Bob Page the authority to sign and finalize the few details that remain outstanding. Page and board chairman Dr. George Farha both expressed their pleasure with the final document that was created.

Among the highlights:

¢ A new medical office building will be built by the hospital for the university with ground to be broken no later than Jan. 1, 2009. The university then will pay the hospital about $3.1 million per year in rent.

¢ Greater independence for the Kansas University Physicians Inc. group. The physicians previously had been integrated in many ways with the leadership of the medical center but not the hospital. Both organizations now will have equal, but lesser, representation on the KUPI board.

¢ The hospital will increase the amount of support it provides to the medical center and KUPI from about $31 million to about $46 million.

¢ The hospital will increase the number of its residencies and will pay for all of them.

KUMC Executive Vice Chancellor Barbara Atkinson said she hoped this agreement would signal a new level of cooperation among KUMC, KU Hospital and KUPI. The agreement still needs approval from two key groups: the Kansas Board of Regents and the KUPI board of directors.

Both of those groups are scheduled to meet Thursday.

For more details, pick up a copy of Wednesday’s Journal-World.