Even top surgeons can't repair a severe blockage that keeps Henry Ford and Beaumont health systems from operating smoothly together.
Karen Bouffard of The Detroit news tells what happened:
Henry Ford and Beaumont have scrapped plans for a merger that would have created a 10-hospital system serving as much as 40 percent of the area's patients.
In October, the hospital systems signed a letter of intent to merge and had hoped to close on a deal by late summer or early fall. . . .
The deal would have created a $6.4 billion organization encompassing 10 hospitals, 38,000 employees, 7,000 physicians, two medical school connections, a health plan and 200 patient care sites in southeastern Michigan.
Beaumont pulled out, the paper says CEO Nancy Schlichting of Henry Ford Health Systems told employees Tuesday:
It became apparent that two very different perspectives had emerged for the new organization between Henry Ford and Beaumont. As a result, many of the foundational elements in the Letter of Intent, including preserving two academic medical centers in Detroit and Royal Oak, were no longer supported by some leaders at Beaumont.
At Beaumont, which proposed the deal, president Gene Michalski confimed the collapse with polite language:
"We found through our discussions that we are not aligned on how to achieve our vision for a model health system due to differences in our structures and business models."
