As the healthcare industry continues to see changes and competitive pressures, many health systems are branching out past their local markets to increase care delivery and provide sustainable growth through cross-market mergers.
Here are five large cross-market mergers in the works or solidified that Becker's has reported on since 2022:
1. In late October, Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health and Marshfield (Wis.) Clinic Health System signed an affiliation to combine into a 56-hospital system after Marshfield and Duluth, Minn.-based Essentia Health called off merger efforts to combine into a 25-hospital system in early January. The merger would bring together around 56,000 employees, 4,300 providers, research institutions, specialty pharmacies, and two health plans – Sanford Health Plan and Security Health Plan.
2. Northwell Health, based in New Hyde Park, N.Y., and Danbury, Conn.-based Nuvance Health are working to finalize a merger that would create a nonprofit, regional health system with 28 hospitals across Connecticut and New York, 14,500 providers and more than 1,000 care sites.
3. St. Louis-based BJC HealthCare and Kansas City, Mo.-based Saint Luke's Health System finalized their merger transaction in early January, which resulted in the consolidation of $10 billion in revenue, 28 hospitals and multiple service centers in clinics.
4. Washington, D.C.-based Risant Health, a nonprofit organization part of Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente, acquired Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health in late March. Risant Health plans to acquire four to five more community-based health systems over the next four to five years.
5. Advocate Aurora Health, dually headquartered in Milwaukee and Downers Grove, Ill., and Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health, formed Advocate Health in December 2022. The merger developed what is now a 69-hospital system based in Charlotte with 155,000 employees and more than 1,000 care sites, according to its website.