| Ardent Health Services | |
| Type: | Public |
| Foundation: | 1993 |
| Founder: | Edward Stack |
| Location City: | Nashville, Tennessee |
| Location Country: | United States |
| Key People: | Martin J Bonick, CEO |
| Owner: | Ventas Equity Group Investments |
| Num Employees: | 15,300 |
Ardent Health Services, formerly known as Behavioral Healthcare Corporation is a for-profit healthcare company based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
The Behavioral Healthcare Corporation was founded in 1993 by Edward Stack.[1] [2] Until 2001, it was a privately held company owned by Kindred Healthcare and Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe and several individual investors and focused owning and operating behavioral health facilities. It currently owns and operates hospitals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Amarillo, Texas, Pocatello, Idaho, Topeka, Kansas, 2 in New Jersey and, as of March 1, 2018, UTHET in Tyler, Texas.
By 2001, the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe became majority shareholders and changed the name of the company.[3]
The company sold its [behavioral health operations to Psychiatric Solutions, Inc.]s in 2005.
In 2015, Ventas acquired the company for $1.75b through a traditional sale-leaseback transaction where Ventas remained the owner of essentially all of Ardent's real property interests while a joint venture between Equity Group Investments, Ventas and several members of management acquired its hospital operations.[4]
In February 2018, Ardent Health Services acquired the East Texas Medical Center (ETMC) hospital system, and created the "Tyler Regional Hospital, LLC",[5] purchased the name-rights of the University of Texas Health Sciences Brand, and created a Doing-Business-As name of "UT Health Tyler".[6] The "Tyler Regional Hospital, LLC" business continues operating under the UT Health Brand but is not currently under the University of Texas umbrella of administration. Currently, the University of Texas system owns a 30% share in the hospital while Ardent Health owns a 70% share.[7]
In February 2020, Ardent Health Services president and CEO David T. Vandewater announced his plans to retire from the company. He will remained as president and CEO until a successor was named.[8]
In August 2020, Ardent Health Services appointed Martin J. Bonick as president and CEO.[9] Today the company has 26,000 employees, 30 hospitals and over 200 sites of care in six states.