Harvard-linked hospital planning to open medical center in Hengqin

Massachusetts General Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, has agreed with potential partners in China to explore a joint venture to build and run a hospital in the country.
The Boston hospital has been engaged in talks with Chinese health-care groups and investors for the past year and signed an agreement last week to continue “the planning and due diligence necessary to determine whether to commit to this effort,” according to an internal letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
U.S. hospitals and medical schools have begun eyeing China as its economy has developed and demand for health care increases. Government reforms have opened the country to international trade and privatization, and China is making “significant investments” in the health industry, Massachusetts General said in the letter.
“When the opportunity arose to explore a relationship with Chinese partners to jointly create a tertiary medical center in the rapidly growing Pearl River Delta region, where the cities of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou are located, we felt it would be appropriate to look into the possibility more deeply,” the hospital executives said in the letter posted Friday.
Massachusetts General would operate the hospital with Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a local health-care provider. The building, which has a working name of MGH Hospital China, would be located in a “special economic development zone” on Hengqin island. The center would provide clinical care and support research and medical training programs.
“These discussions are preliminary, and no final decision is expected until next summer at the earliest,” the executives said in the letter.
Massachusetts General officials didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Speculation that a Harvard-linked hospital has been preparing to open a branch in the country has swirled since December, when real estate billionaire Hui Ka Yan’s Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd. said it had signed an agreement with a Harvard hospital to build in China. Officials at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said in February that they were considering such an agreement, and later dropped the idea.
A press release about the Massachusetts General plan was distributed in China last week and has led to coverage in the media there, according to the letter. Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General are both members of Partners HealthCare system in Boston, which is separate from Harvard with its own board of directors. John Lauerman , Bloomberg