Officials at OSF HealthCare have announced exclusive negotiations are underway toward a merger with Evergreen Park-based Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers.
The organizations will finalize agreements the next several months while seeking the necessary regulatory and canonical approvals. The merger is expected to take place in early 2020.
“We’re a large system, but really had little hospital presence in Chicago,” said OSF HealthCare CEO Bob Sehring. “But we’ve had a long presence in Chicago through innovation.”
“We have long admired the strong Catholic heritage and commitment to the gift of life demonstrated by Little Company of Mary, and believe that together, we can create better health and deliver value for our communities,” Sehring said.
According to a joint news release, in addition to adding advanced technologies and innovative capabilities, the agreement would allow OSF HealthCare and Little Company of Mary to share services, develop and expand academic partnerships, and create strategies to meet the unique needs of various populations.
“I think back when I joined OSF we were five hospitals,” Sehring said. “Now we’re soon to be, hopefully, 14. We do believe we have a great deal of experience, if not expertise, to bringing on facilities to OSF.”
“We have been talking with (OSF HealthCare) for many months and we are very impressed with their commitment to the Catholic mission of health care and their commitment to innovation in health care, not just a technological aspect but the delivery of it as well,” said Little Company of Mary president and CEO John Hanlon.
“We have explored other affiliation partners in the past and we explored several affiliation partners this time around as well,” Hanlon said. “What’s different this time is the cultural fit with OSF. The success and failure of affiliations, to my understanding, hinges largely on the cultures of the organizations. That really could make or break affiliation. We feel the cultural fit between these organizations, their devotion to Catholic health care, their devotion to growth, their devotion to innovation, these are things we think are very congruent with our culture and bode for a much higher chance of success than any other affiliation partner we’ve looked at in the past.”
