Advocate Aurora Health and Beaumont Health have put an end to their discussions around a potential partnership, officials announced Friday.
The announcement comes months after the two organizations signed a letter of intent to open discussions.
It also comes after Michigan lawmakers—as well as doctors at Beaumont—raised serious concerns about Beaumont, Michigan’s largest healthcare system, becoming part of one of the largest nonprofit integrated health systems in the U.S.
Advocate Aurora has 28 hospitals, more than 500 sites of care and more than 70,000 employees. Beaumont Health is a $4.7 billion health system with eight hospitals and 145 outpatient sites of care and 38,000 employees.
“We continue to have a very high regard for Advocate Aurora Health," said John Fox, president and CEO of Beaumont Health, in a statement. “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.”
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Discussions began in late 2019 but were put on hold in the midst of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said. In April, Beaumont Health temporarily laid off 2,475 workers and cut 450 positions in response to massive financial losses.
However, the two organizations made their letter of intent public in June, saying at the time they wanted to allow further discussions into creating a health system that would span across Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.
Leaders from the organizations had agreed to an equal one-third governance representation of any future partnership between Beaumont and both the legacy Advocate Healthcare and Aurora Healthcare organizations, which merged in 2018 to created Advocate Aurora Health. That megamerger formed one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the U.S. with a combined revenue of $11 billion.
“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, in a statement.
Earlier this year, Beaumont Health called off a potential deal with Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health.