CHICAGO -- The prestigious Cleveland Clinic announced Wednesday it plans to team up with another Ohio health provider, marking the latest merger transforming the Ohio hospital landscape.
The Cleveland Clinic said it will partner with ProMedica Health, an 11-hospital system in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan that also owns 300 health care facilities.
The two providers signed a memorandum of understanding that will create a “clinically aligned network” and integrate information technology, but stops short of a full merger.
The non-profit health care sector across the country is seeing a record number of partnerships, affiliations, and acquisition as providers prepare for changes under the new federal health care reform law.
The Cleveland Clinic said its newest partnership is part of a national trend toward “population-centric” model of health care from a hospital-centric one.
“In this transformational time in health care, a new level of collaboration is required and health systems are integrating in unique ways,” Toby Cosgrove, the clinic’s CEO, said in a statement. “This affiliation will allow Cleveland Clinic and ProMedica to work together to improve efficiency, reduce costs and drive quality and value to patients.”
In July, the Clinic announced it would build a new hospital in the city of Avon and would renovate an existing health center, and in June it announced a partnership with Case Western Reserve University for the university’s new medical education building, which will be built on the Cleveland Clinic’s main campus.
Elsewhere in Ohio, the University Hospitals Health System in late June said it wants to acquire EMH Healthcare, a small system based in Lorain County. Catholic Health Partners, the state’s largest provider, announced in February that it plans to acquire Akron-based Summa Health System.
