Care New England, the second-largest hospital system in Rhode Island, has been in negotiations since last April for a sale to Boston-based Partners HealthCare. Now it has some new potential suitors: Brown University and Prospect Medical Holdings.

Brown president Christina Paxson said the university wants to team with Prospect to buy Care New England, arguing if Partners completes the acquisition, the cost of care would increase and Rhode Islanders wouldn’t be able to advocate for how their healthcare system is run.

“If the focal point of Rhode Island health care shifts to Boston, excellent physicians (many of them Brown-trained) could be less likely to choose Rhode Island as a place to practice,” she wrote, according to the Providence Journal. “In addition, the full economic benefits of a strong local academic health system—one that brings in federal grants, generates spin-off companies and creates new jobs in Rhode Island—would be lost, perhaps forever.”

Under Paxson’s proposed plan, Brown would acquire Care New England’s Women & Infants Hospital, while Prospect would take over Kent Hospital and “non-hospital assets,” with the status of Butler Hospital to be worked out later. The United Nurses and Allied Professionals union, however, quickly came out against the idea.

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