What occurred to Centura Well being? Why the Colorado hospital model identify is about to vanish.

For 27 years, the identify Centura Well being has stood atop hospitals in Colorado, one of many largest techniques in one of many nation’s best well being care markets.

It’s been round longer than Empower Discipline at Mile Excessive, longer than Ball Enviornment — and never simply these names, however the precise buildings, too. It’s older than Google, Fb and the iPhone. The Centura model identify lifted off solely a 12 months after Denver Worldwide Airport did.

And it’ll disappear within the coming months.

A information launch earlier this month introduced that the Centura identify, brand and model “shall be retired over the following 12 months.” The explanation for its demise is because of the divorce of the 2 separate well being techniques whose partnership created the Centura three way partnership within the first place — CommonSpirit Well being and AdventHealth.

Below the Centura model, the 2 techniques had managed 25 hospitals. Now that they’re splitting aside, the techniques will every return to managing simply the hospitals they personal — 20 hospitals in Colorado, Kansas and Utah for CommonSpirit and 5 hospitals in Colorado for AdventHealth.

“Throughout the disaffiliation course of, CommonSpirit Well being and AdventHealth agreed the Centura Well being identify, brand and model can be retired over the following 12 months,” Lindsay Radford, a spokeswoman for CommonSpirit, wrote in an electronic mail to The Solar. “As such, each well being care techniques will introduce their manufacturers on the care websites they now immediately handle.”

Each techniques say the identify switches won’t have an effect on affected person care and that sufferers ought to discover little or no change.

A screenshot of an internet site arrange by AdventHealth asserting that the system’s 5 Denver metro space hospitals will quickly carry the AdventHealth identify as a substitute of the Centura identify. (John Ingold, The Colorado Solar)

A curious retirement

What would turn into of the Centura identify on account of the divorce had been an ongoing thriller. For months after they introduced their break up, neither CommonSpirit nor AdventHealth would touch upon the identify.

In June, AdventHealth started working advertisements asserting that its hospitals “will quickly be a part of the AdventHealth community of care.” However, in the meantime, CommonSpirit saved making strikes below the Centura banner.

It introduced a brand new group president for a few of its Colorado hospitals — in a information launch it posted on Centura’s web site. It purchased 5 hospitals in Utah and mentioned these hospitals can be managed by Centura.

Most surprisingly, it scooped well being big UCHealth to snag the naming rights because the official well being care companion for the Denver Broncos. It even slapped the Centura identify on the staff’s coaching facility.

All of this occurred after it was introduced that Centura can be going kaput.

Radford, the CommonSpirit spokeswoman, mentioned CommonSpirit will take over the Broncos naming rights deal subsequent 12 months.

“With the 2023-2024 season already underway, followers will proceed to see the Centura Well being identify and model,” she wrote in an electronic mail. “On the finish of the season, we are going to work with the Broncos to transition to CommonSpirit.”

Mercy Hospital in Durango, a Catholic hospital and a part of the Centura Well being system. (Josh Stephenson, Particular to The Colorado Solar)

However at what value?

Removed from being an outlier, the vanishing Centura identify suits in completely with a hospital trade experiencing a golden age of rebranding.

Based on one trade publication, dozens of hospitals and well being techniques throughout the nation have rebranded lately. A few of these have been easy brand adjustments. Some have been tweaks to take away the phrase “hospital” or one thing related from the identify and emphasize well being care that extends past the hospital partitions — akin to, as an illustration, when the Vail Valley Medical Middle modified its identify in 2017 to Vail Well being.

Earlier this 12 months, Intermountain Healthcare — which operates 5 hospitals in Colorado following its merger final 12 months with SCL Well being — introduced that it will henceforth be often called Intermountain Well being.

However these rebrands are generally pricey endeavors. There are indicators, promoting, documentation and all method of things with the well being system’s model on them. When Boston-based Companions HealthCare modified its identify in 2019 to Mass Normal Brigham, the rebranding was estimated to value upwards of $100 million.

It’s unclear what AdventHealth and CommonSpirit well being will spend on rebranding, although. Spokespeople for each organizations didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the determine.