Advocate Aurora Health, Beaumont Health eye merger deal

Advocate Aurora Health and Beaumont Health are eyeing a potential partnership, the two health systems announced Wednesday.

The health systems signed a nonbinding letter of intent to allow further discussions into creating a health system that would span across Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. 

“The potential opportunity to leverage the strength and scale of a regional organization while maintaining a local focus and strong presence in Michigan as a leader and major employer is important to us," said John Fox, president and CEO of Southfield, Michigan-based Beaumont Health, in a statement.

RELATED: Megamerger would make Advocate Aurora Health one of the largest systems in the nation

Discussions began in 2019 but were paused in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said. Both systems said they would will work closely with state and regulatory agencies throughout the process and notified all three attorneys general earlier this week.

Leaders from the organizations said they've each 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. The megamerger created one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the U.S. with a combined revenue of $11 billion.

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.

Beaumont Health recently called off a potential deal with Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health. They'd signed a definitive agreement to make Summa Health a subsidiary of Beaumont Health in early 2020 but announced May 29 they were ending the deal.