Michigan Medicine and Sparrow inked an affiliation settlement in 2019, with the Ann Arbor well being system integrating pediatric companies on the Sparrow Children’s Center in Lansing. A full merger was rumored in the course of the negotiations for the affiliation. Michigan Medicine additionally made a minority funding in Sparrow’s well being plan, Physicians Health, in 2019.
It’s unclear what is going to occur to Sparrow’s present partnership with Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine and College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The sale comes as Sparrow Health System introduced plans earlier this fall to put off a whole lot of staff after recording a $90 million loss in the course of the first six months of the yr, even because it struggles with employee shortages.
The Lansing-based hospital system mentioned in September that rising prices have left it no alternative however to half with employees largely in management and non-patient care roles. Some eliminations will likely be in medical roles the place affected person volumes have declined.
The system wouldn’t remark past its assertion and wouldn’t outline the precise variety of job losses.
“Expenses have risen across all categories, including supplies and salaries, wages, and benefits, while patient volumes have declined, and the cost of contracting agency labor has skyrocketed,” the system wrote within the assertion on the time. “In effect, the COVID pandemic may be over clinically, but it has caused a financial pandemic for the nation’s healthcare providers. As a result, we are implementing staff reductions that impact several hundred roles at the health system.”
Michigan Medicine employs about 25,000 staff. Sparrow employs greater than 7,500. Michigan Medicine operates only one hospital in Ann Arbor and 40 ambulatory amenities, whereas Sparrow operates six hospitals in Lansing, Carson, Ionia, Charlotte, St. Johns and a specialty hospital inside its essential Lansing hospital. It additionally operates 56 ambulatory amenities.
This story first appeared in Crain’s Detroit Business.