Beaumont Health in Southfield Ends Potential Partnership Talks with Advocate Aurora

Beaumont Health in Southfield, Michigan’s largest health care system, today announced that it has mutually agreed with Advocate Aurora Health to end partnership discussions after the two organizations signed a non-binding letter of intent in June.
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Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak
Beaumont and Advocate Aurora Health have ended partnership discussions that began at the end of 2019. Pictured is Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak. // File photo

Beaumont Health in Southfield, Michigan’s largest health care system, today announced that it has mutually agreed with Advocate Aurora Health to end partnership discussions after the two organizations signed a non-binding letter of intent in June.

The letter of intent was designed to allow both enterprises to further explore a potential partnership that could have led to the creation of a health care system that would span Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Advocate Aurora Health has dual headquarters in Milwaukee and suburban Chicago

The organizations began discussions at the end of 2019 and paused them to focus on treating and preventing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a first step in the renewed discussions, the organizations agreed to an equal one-third governance representation of any future partnership between Beaumont, and legacy Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care, which merged in 2018 to create Advocate Aurora.

“We continue to have a very high regard for Advocate Aurora Health,” says John Fox, president and CEO of Beaumont Health. “But, at this time, we want to focus on our local market priorities and the physicians, nurses, and staff who provide compassionate, extraordinary care every day.”

Both systems will work closely with state and regulatory agencies throughout the process; including all three attorneys general in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

“We have great respect for Beaumont Health and we continue to believe scale will play a critical role in advancing quality, accelerating transformation and reducing cost in the healthcare world of tomorrow,” said Jim Skogsbergh, president and CEO of Advocate Aurora Health.

The news comes after Beaumont announced it ended partnership plans with Ohio’s Summa Health earlier this year. The two organizations had been working over the last year to create a partnership, signed a definitive agreement in December, and received all necessary state and federal regulatory approvals. The organizations did not give a reason for ending the partnership.

Beaumont has eight hospitals with nearly 3,500 beds, 145 outpatient sites, nearly 5,000 affiliated physicians, 38,000 employees, and 3,500 volunteers. Last year, revenue was $4.7 billion.

Advocate Aurora is one of the 10 largest not-for-profit integrated health systems in the U.S. It serves nearly 3 million patients annually in Illinois and Wisconsin across more than 500 sites of care.

For the DBusiness 2020 list of the largest hospital systems in Michigan, visit here.