Endeavor Health, including its nine Chicago-area hospitals, announced plans Wednesday to merge under the Rush University System for Health umbrella, according to hospital officials.
For now, little will change for patients, as the proposed merger will go through a regulatory process that could take months to be approved. When combined, the health system will include 12 hospitals in Chicago and surrounding suburbs, which could make it one of the largest health systems in the region.
Endeavor Health hospitals include Swedish Hospital, Evanston Hospital, Edward Hospital, Skokie Hospital, Elmhurst Hospital, Glenbrook Hospital, Highland Park Hospital, Linden Oaks Hospital and Northwest Community Hospital. The hospitals will retain their names but operate under Rush.
Dr. Omar Lateef, president and CEO of Rush University System for Health and Rush University Medical Center, said the goal is to improve patient access and opportunities for its workforce. The combined system will include its current hospitals – Rush University Medical Center, Rush Copley Medical Center and Rush Oak Park Hospital.
“If you need a clinical trial, this should pave the way for clinical trials,” Lateef said. “If you need access to a higher level or a more local type of care, you can get it where you are. The goal is to improve access, provide the highest quality care and expand it to all of our sites and make it easy for any patient who is in that site to go to another site.”
Views of the pharmacy inside Rush University Medical Center on February 9, 2022.
Once the merger is finalized, Lateef will assume the role of CEO Emeritus and serve as a strategic advisor while JP Gallagher, the current leader of Endeavor Health, will become president and CEO of the new combined health system, according to a press release.
Gallagher said the economic pressures facing health care did not directly lead to the merger, but he wanted to ensure Endeavor’s institutions continue to serve their workforce and community for decades to come.
“It’s kind of a long-term bet to be able to not only resist some of these pressures, but frankly, be strong and do some things differently that allow us to improve what that care and experience looks like, even in light of the environment,” Gallagher said.
The merger will come with a $1 billion investment from Endeavor’s endowment that will fund community programs, innovation and research and academics within the combined system, Gallagher and Lateef said.
“We know there is a massive shortage of health care providers in this country right now,” Lateef said. “There’s not enough nurses, there’s not enough doctors, there’s not enough ultrasound technicians. We have a health sciences college and we’re committed to increasing our current workforce, and we’re going to take that money and help grow our existing programs.”
The investment will also be used for research efforts focusing on health equity and neuroscience, Lateef said. Other funds will be used for Rush programs aimed at closing the life expectancy gap in Chicago.
It was unclear Wednesday what the proposed merger would mean for nurses at Rush and Endeavor who in recent months have gone public with efforts to unionize their workplaces, many citing concerns about nurse-patient ratios. Just this week, nurses at Edward Hospital in Naperville announced they had filed a petition to hold an election, a step toward unionizing under the National Nurses Organizing Committee.
Nurses at Rush University Medical Center voted earlier this year to form a union under the same umbrella, which is affiliated with the larger National Nurses United. Endeavor Hospitals Nurses in Evanston, Skokie, Glenbrook and Highland Park also organized under another union, Teamsters Local 743.
“Endeavor nurses are essential to our mission; they are essential to our identity and are an essential part of everything we do,” Gallagher said. “We’ve been very actively engaged, listening and meeting with our nurses and understanding what’s important to them. And we’ve made some very significant investments and will continue to do so as part of our short-term and long-term future.”
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