By BOB OLIVER
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN — The merger between Oakwood Healthcare, Beaumont Health System and Botsford Health Care is now a reality.
The merger, which was first announced in March, was officially launched as the new Beaumont Health Sep. 2.
The new $3.8 billion organization will have eight hospitals and 153 outpatient sites with more than 3,300 beds, 5,000 physicians, 33,093 employees and 3,500 volunteers.
“This is a great day for the people of southeastern Michigan,” Beaumont Health Board Chairman John Lewis said. “Beaumont Health will continue the traditions of our legacy organizations as a nonprofit, locally governed organization.
“With our combined strengths of patient satisfaction, medical excellence and community focus, we look forward to serving the health needs of patients and families for years to come, with quality and compassion guiding all that we do.”
Beaumont Health will be governed by a 14-member board and executive leadership structure with representation from the three organizations that includes Lewis, Beaumont President and CEO Gene Michalski and Oakwood Healthcare Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Malcolm Henoch among others.
Michalski said that hard work between the organizations allowed the merger to happen quickly.
“This demonstrates our strong, mutual commitment to a common vision for Beaumont Health: medical care of the highest quality and highest value, with a seamless experience, for every patient, every time,” Michalski said.
Oakwood CEO Brian Connolly agreed.
“The integration planning to create a new health care organization from three separate organizations has gone extremely smoothly, which is a credit to the leaders and staff of Beaumont, Botsford and Oakwood,” Connolly said.
In a press release announcing the merger, it was said that before the end of the year the organization will be working to appoint the new Beaumont Health executive team, determine a location for Beaumont Health executive offices, determine a plan for integrating the eight individual hospital names with the new Beaumont Health name and develop a new corporate organizational structure to align all the individual entities that make up Beaumont Health.
Beaumont Health are using temporary offices at the PNC building in Troy.
According to published reports, the merger could save the three health systems more than $134 million, which Lewis said will help all three organizations improve the quality and access of care throughout the region.
He also said the new health system would be a national model and “pave the way for an even stronger national voice in the future of health care delivery.”
(Bob Oliver can be reached at [email protected].)