Sanford Health and Intermountain Healthcare have announced their intent to merge.
Their plan is to complete the merger by next summer.
Intermountain is based in Salt Lake City – and it will be the managing partner. It will keep its corporate offices in Sioux Falls. Intermountain CEO Marc Harrison will be the CEO of the new organization.
At a news conference, Harrison said health care has become unaffordable for many Americans. He said there is a lot of duplication and waste in the health care system.
"We think the antidote to this is a system at scale across the interior western United States," Harrison said. "It's predicated on population health, and value, and affordability for the people we're privileged to serve."
"We have to promise that those people have access to hospitals, doctors, staff, technology and good care," said Sanford CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft. "The only way we can deliver on that is when leaders can sit down in a room with their boards and say, 'Maybe we should put our organizations together.' That's the why of this."
The new organization will have 70 hospitals and 435 clinics, employing 89,000 people. Both organizations will operate under their current names, for the foreseeable future.
