Intermountain Healthcare completes merger with Colorado's SCL Health

Salt Lake City’s Intermountain Healthcare and SCL Health of Broomfield, Colorado, have completed their previously announced merger, Intermountain said in a press release. The two nonprofit organizations now serve communities in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Co-lorado, Montana, Wyoming and Kansas.

The combined healthcare providers now employ more than 59,000 caregivers, operate 33 hospitals (including one virtual hospital) and run 385 clinics while providing health insurance to 1 million people in Utah and Idaho.

The new organization will carry the name of Intermountain Healthcare and is headquartered in Salt Lake City. It will maintain regional offices in Colorado and Las Vegas. With the close of this merger, Intermountain Healthcare becomes the 11th largest nonprofit health system in the United States, the release said.

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt will serve as the new board chair for the combined organization. In addition to three terms as governor, Leavitt served in the cabinet of Pres. George W. Bush as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The board includes representation from the pre-merger boards of both Intermountain Healthcare and SCL Health. The most recent Intermountain Healthcare board chair, Gail Miller, and most recent SCL Health board chair, Michael L. Fordyce, will continue as members of the combined board.

Fordyce will serve as board vice chair of the Intermountain Healthcare board and as board chair of the Intermountain region board based in Colorado, and Miller will serve as board chair of the new region board based in Salt Lake City.

“With this merger, we’ll create a model for the future of healthcare that focuses on keeping people healthy and proactively addresses causes of illness through high-quality, affordable, and accessible care to more patients,” said Intermountain Healthcare president and CEO, Dr. Marc Harrison, who will continue to lead Intermountain. “The merger provides a model for healthcare for the rest of the country.”

Lydia Jumonville, as the executive sponsor, will lead the integration of the two systems and work in partnership with Harrison and serve as a member of the new Intermountain board.

“We’re pleased with how our organizations have come together,” said Jumonville. “Our work is well underway, and we are being very thoughtful about moving the best of our systems forward to continue providing the highest quality of care in the communities we serve. We will advance our mission and better serve the entire region together.”

Jumonville said SCL Health’s Catholic hospitals will retain their distinctive Catholic names and continue to operate according to existing practices.