CHICAGO — Crittenton Hospital Medical Center in suburban Detroit, which had been one of Michigan's last stand-alone hospitals, has completed its months-long merger with St. Louis-based Ascension Health, the largest nonprofit health care system in the country.
The systems announced Aug. 31 they had closed the merger after six months of negotiations. The financial terms will not be made public.
"This change enhances the ability of Ascension Michigan in fulfilling our mission to provide compassionate, personalized care to all persons in the region," Ascension executive vice president Robert Hankel said in a press release.
The nonprofit health care sector has seen a wave of mergers over the past five years as stand-alone, often financially struggling providers look to join with larger, higher-rated systems. Michigan has been a particularly active state for mergers, and Crittenton was one of the state's last independent hospitals.
The merger means Ascension will operate six hospitals in Michigan. The system has 131 hospitals and more than 30 senior care facilities in 24 states and the District of Columbia.
Crittenton, a 290-bed acute care hospital that is also the teacher campus for nurses from Oakland University, announced plans to merge with Ascension in January. The hospital, rated Baa3 by Moody's Investors Service, has $105.5 million of outstanding bonds issued by the Michigan State Hospital Authority. It has struggled financially over the last few years, according to local reports. One of the challenges noted by Moody's in a 2014 report was being a stand-alone hospital in a metro Detroit area dominated by larger systems.
The hospital also was tainted by the recent high-profile trial of one of its oncologists, Farid Fata, who in July was sentenced to 45 years in prison for mistreating hundreds of cancer patients, including having some undergo chemotherapy when they didn't have cancer.
