CHI Franciscan and Virginia Mason officially formed an 11-hospital health system Jan. 5. The system, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, will be part of Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health.

Five things to know: 

1. The merger comes as Virginia Mason Memorial in Yakima, Wash., ended its affiliation with Virginia Mason. The Yakima hospital’s board said it wanted to become an “independent, local healthcare system” instead of joining a larger system. The board’s decision came after a group of retired physicians affiliated with Virginia Mason Memorial argued a merger would result in fewer specialty services, fewer specialized physicians and lower quality patient care. Virginia Mason health system officials disagreed, arguing the merger could improve healthcare locally.

2. The combined Virginia Mason Franciscan Health will have more than 300 care sites in western Washington. That includes primary and specialty care clinics, surgery centers, the Benaroya Research Institute, the Bailey-Boushay House and the Virginia Mason Institute.

3. The organization will initially be led through a dyad CEO model by Ketul Patel and Gary Kaplan, MD. Mr. Patel’s title is CEO of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and president of the Pacific Northwest Division of CommonSpirit Health. Dr. Kaplan’s title is CEO of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. More details about the new system’s leadership team will be released in coming weeks, the executives said in a Jan. 4 phone interview with Becker’s Hospital Review.

4. The combination will bring Virginia Mason under the CommonSpirit umbrella, which is a Catholic health system. During the Jan. 4 interview, Dr. Kaplan said the merger will mean two services will end at the newly combined Virginia Mason Franciscan Health: elective abortions and “Death with Dignity” services. All other comprehensive aspects of end-of-life and palliative care, as well as access to women’s and LGBTQ+ services, will remain available, Dr. Kaplan said.

5. The deal, announced in July 2020, will result in a health system with more than 18,000 workers, including almost 5,000 employed physicians and affiliated providers. CHI Franciscan is based in Tacoma, Wash., and Virginia Mason is based in Seattle.

Two hospital systems in Washington state, CHI Franciscan and Virginia Mason Health System, have signed a definitive agreement to combine through a joint operating company that would be a subsidiary of Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health. 

The two organizations inked the agreement Dec. 21 and made it public Dec. 23. The parties signed a letter of intent to explore a combination in July.

The combination would create a nine-hospital system. Two of the hospitals would be from Seattle-based Virginia Mason and seven would come from Tacoma, Wash.-based CHI Franciscan, which is part of CommonSpirit Health.

News of the planned merger prompted Virginia Mason’s 256-bed hospital in Yakima, Wash., to part ways with the health system before it combined with CHI Franciscan. The board of Virginia Mason Memorial said it wants to become an “independent, local healthcare system” instead of joining a larger system. 

The two health systems said they expect the transaction to be finalized around Jan. 1, 2021, pending regulatory approval. 

There were several hospital mergers that, at some point in their lifetime, were called off in the past year. 

Below are seven hospital mergers called off since December 2019, beginning with the most recent:

1. Sanford, Intermountain halt merger talks
Sanford Health indefinitely suspended discussions in early December about a planned merger with Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health because of the abrupt exit of Sanford’s longtime president and CEO, Kelby Krabbenhoft. Sanford and Intermountain announced in October they had signed a letter of intent to merge, with completion of the deal expected in 2021. The combination would create a $15 billion, 70-hospital system. In its statement issued Dec. 4, Sanford said it will pause current merger and acquisition activity while it addresses other organizational needs. 

2. Advocate Aurora, Beaumont cancel merger
Advocate Aurora Health, which has dual headquarters in Milwaukee and Downers Grove, Ill., and Southfield, Mich.-based Beaumont Health called off their merger plan Oct. 2, about five months after signing a letter of intent to combine. The proposed merger faced criticism from some Beaumont physicians, nurses and donors. In August, the Beaumont board of trustees confirmed it would delay a vote on the planned merger. The trustees decided to postpone the vote after seeing the results of a survey, completed by 1,500 of the system’s 5,000 physicians, that revealed a lack of confidence in Beaumont’s leadership and concerns about its proposed merger with Advocate Aurora. The merger of Beaumont and Advocate Aurora would have created a $17 billion system with 36 hospitals.

3. California hospital ends merger talks with Dignity Health
County officials overseeing Ventura (Calif.) County Medical Center ended merger talks with San Francisco-based Dignity Health in July after leaders from both parties deemed an affiliation too risky. County Health Care Agency Director Bill Foley said Dignity officials considered it a risk to take on public hospitals, while county managers were concerned they would give up control but still face risk for buildings and finances. County officials were also concerned VCMC would lose its designation as a public hospital under either a lease or a contract with Dignity, which would put roughly $150 million in annual funding at risk. 

4. Beaumont, Summa Health cancel $6.1B merger plan  
Southfield, Mich.-based Beaumont Health called off a proposed merger with Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health in late May. They ended talks about five months after signing a definitive agreement, under which Summa Health would have become a subsidiary of Beaumont. The proposed deal, which had already received all necessary regulatory approvals, would have created a nonprofit system with 12 hospitals and $6.1 billion in annual revenue. 

5. 4 Chicago hospitals call off $1.1B merger plan  
Chicago-based Advocate Trinity Hospital, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, South Shore Hospital and St. Bernard Hospital signed a letter of intent in January to combine into a single health system and build at least one new hospital and several community health centers. The hospitals called off the deal in late May after government funding for the $1.1 billion plan fell through. 

6. Geisinger, AtlantiCare sever merger
Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger and Atlantic City, N.J.-based AtlantiCare severed their merger in March, about five years after the two systems combined. The separation of the two organizations is expected to take up to 18 months, the two organizations said in March. 

7. Wisconsin health systems call off merger
La Crosse, Wis.-based Gundersen Health System and Marshfield (Wis.) Clinic Health System abandoned plans in December 2019 to merge into a 13-hospital rural healthcare network. The two systems said they “mutually decided to remain independent” after several months of productive and collaborative discussions.

https://www.wbjournal.com/article/umass-memorial-harrington-file-merger-plans

UMass Memorial Health Care and the Harrington HealthCare System have filed paperwork for regulatory approval for their plans for Harrington to become part of the UMass Memorial system.

Worcester-based UMass Memorial said Tuesday the two hospital systems filed the first in a series of required filings with state regulatory agencies for their proposed marriage. The review process, to include Massachusetts Health Policy Commission and Attorney General’s Office, is expected to take up to four months.

UMass Memorial and Harrington first said in January they intended on Harrington being folded into the much larger UMass Memorial system, which is the largest employer in Central Massachusetts. Harrington, whose main hospital is in Southbridge, has remained one of a small and shrinking number of independent hospitals in the state.

The two systems already collaborate through a system allowing Harrington care providers to consult remotely with UMass Memorial specialists in caring for critically ill patients. Harrington will also be brought into UMass Memorial’s electronic patient records system as part of the planned integration.

UMass Memorial has committed to operating Harrington’s hospital campuses in Southbridge and Webster as acute-care hospitals for at least five years. Upon regulatory approval, Harrington will join UMass Memorial’s Medical Center in Worcester, Marlborough Hospital and Clinton Hospital.