Today, Sanford Health and Marshfield Clinic Health System announced their plans for a merger.
Marshfield Clinic has hospitals and clinics in Wisconsin and the U.P.
Sanford Health, headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is the largest rural health system in the US.
They now have a nonbinding Memorandum of Understanding to combine their assets and capabilities to create a new integrated nonprofit health system for the rural Midwest.
By combining systems, they say their new nonprofit organization will expand research opportunities, invest in rural health needs, and improve patient outcomes.
They’ll be able to serve more than 425,000 members at 56 hospitals.
Over the last decade, Sanford Health has invested more than $1.5 billion in communities across South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa, expanding access to specialty care and state-of-the-art facilities.
Marshfield Clinic Health System will become a region within Sanford Health, maintaining regional leadership.
The combination is expected to close by the end of the year.
Marshfield Clinic Health Systems had previously intended to merge with Essentia Health.
That merger fell through in January.