Two major Chicago area hospital systems – Endeavor Health and Rush University System for Health – announced plans Wednesday to merge, a union that would create one of the largest health systems in Illinois.
If the merger goes through, all the system’s hospitals would include “Rush” as part of their names, and the “Endeavor” name would eventually disappear.
Endeavor and Rush hope to close the deal in early 2027, pending regulatory approval. The combined system would include 12 hospitals, more than 46,000 employees and more than 400 sites of care.
The merger would allow Rush – which has three hospitals in Chicago, Aurora and Oak Park – to reach more patients in additional geographic areas, said Rush President and CEO Dr. Omar Lateef. He said he expects the merger would “dramatically improve care across the state of Illinois.”
It would also allow the nine-hospital Endeavor system to take advantage of Rush University Medical Center’s strong reputation as a premier academic medical institution. Rush University Medical Center tied with Northwestern Memorial Hospital for best hospital in the state this year in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings.
The systems’ leaders said they expect patients will have more access to care closer to home and clinical trials. The merged system would also likely open more outpatient sites, said Endeavor President and CEO J.P. Gallagher.
Endeavor now has hospitals in Evanston, Glenview, Highland Park, Skokie, Arlington Heights, Elmhurst, Naperville and Chicago.
When asked whether the merger would result in job losses or layoffs, Lateef said: “We’re doing this to grow and we want to grow our footprint. We want to grow in the state of Illinois. We expect jobs to increase.”
As part of the deal, Endeavor would put $1 billion from its endowment toward the new system’s efforts, including $300 million to reduce healthcare disparities in its communities; $500 million for Rush University to expand programs, research and clinical trials; and $200 million to improve quality and care.
Once the merger is completed, Gallagher would be named president and CEO of the system. Lateef, with Rush, had previously announced plans to retire from his leadership post in 2027. Lateef would stay in his current role through the close of the deal and then serve as CEO emeritus and as a strategic advisor to the CEO.
The deal must still get approval from state and federal regulators, who may look at it with an eye toward whether it would reduce competition and increase prices.
Some researchers have found that hospital consolidation results in higher prices for insurance companies, and those costs can be passed along to consumers through higher premiums and other payments. Hospitals have long disagreed with that notion, saying consolidations can lead to cost savings and higher quality of care.
Endeavor has been thwarted by federal regulators in the past. The Federal Trade Commission challenged a previous deal that would have merged NorthShore University HealthSystem, which is what Endeavor used to be called, and Advocate Health Care. The two systems walked away from that planned merger in 2017 after a federal judge ruled in favor of the FTC.
Gallagher, however, said Rush and Endeavor have already begun discussions with regulators and expects that “process to go smoothly.” He said he’s optimistic the deal will close in early 2027 as planned.
He also said that growing the system to increase leverage with insurers is not a driver of the merger, noting that many of the systems’ patients are on Medicare and Medicaid, which are government-funded health insurance programs.
“We’re confident that being able to do this at scale is based on being able to deliver care efficiently and in a way that is accessible and affordable,” Gallagher said.
He said a goal of the merger is to create a system that will be stable and strong over the long term.
The news of the merger follows the closures of West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park and Weiss Memorial Hospital
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in Uptown. It also comes as a number of hospitals have cut their labor and delivery units, and others teeter on the brink of closure.“As I think about some of the headlines that we’re seeing around healthcare in Chicago, they’re kind of sobering – hospitals shutting down, service lines getting limited,” Gallagher said. “This is us moving in an opposite direction.”
Endeavor and Rush are both in “a healthy situation today,” he said. Both organizations have had positive operating margins so far this year, according to financial statements.
Endeavor’s positive numbers, however, follow challenges.
Endeavor had operating losses of $494 million in 2024 and $33.9 million in 2025, according to financial statements. Much of the 2024 operating loss was attributable to $453 million in expenses to settle patients’ claims alleging one of Endeavor’s former doctors sexually abused them, Endeavor said in a financial disclosure in late 2024.
Gallagher said those earlier losses were not a motivation for the merger, and some of those losses were expected as Endeavor worked to integrate additional hospitals into its system.
Endeavor has been growing at a rapid pace in recent years – and if the merger is successful, this won’t be the first time it’s had to redo all of its signage.
Since 2020, back when it was still called NorthShore, the system has acquired Swedish Hospital in Chicago, Northwest Community Healthcare in Arlington Heights and merged with the system that was over Edward Hospital in Naperville, Elmhurst Hospital and Linden Oaks Behavioral Health.
After all that growth, NorthShore changed its name to Endeavor in late 2023.
For this new proposed merger, the leaders of the systems agreed that Rush would be the best name for the hospitals moving forward. The hospitals will keep their locations in their names.
“It’s been around for 150 years,” Gallagher said of Rush, “and as we thought about creating a singular organization, we felt it was important to make sure that that identity was also consistent.”
Endeavor first reached out to Rush in March about a potential merger, Gallagher said.
The merger would place the new system among the largest in the state. Northwestern Medicine has 11 hospitals, Prime Healthcare has nine Illinois hospitals and Advocate Health Care has 11 hospitals, including its two-campus children’s hospital.