Northwestern Medicine’s merger with southwest suburban Palos Health is set to take effect Jan. 1, the health systems announced Wednesday.
Palos Health, which has a 425-bed facility in Palos Heights and a satellite campus in Orland Park, will become the 11th hospital in the growing Northwestern Medicine system, which continues to extend its reach in the Chicago suburbs.
No money is changing hands in the merger, which was announced in September and has received state and federal regulatory approvals. The Palos Health brand name will be phased out early next year, Northwestern Medicine spokesman Chris King said Wednesday.
The 48-year-old Palos Hospital has 3,000 employees, 600 affiliated physicians and serves more than 100,000 patients annually.
Last year, Palos Health and Loyola Medicine called off merger talks without explanation.
The addition of Palos Health will give Northwestern Medicine an even broader footprint across the Chicago region, with 11 hospitals, more than 200 ambulatory sites and more than 36,000 physicians, nurses and staff members.
Northwestern Memorial, the Chicago-based health system’s flagship facility, has served as the teaching hospital for Northwestern University’s medical school for more than a century. It has aggressively expanded over the past decade through suburban hospital affiliations, starting with Lake Forest Hospital in 2010.
In 2014, Northwestern announced an affiliation with Cadence Health, adding Central DuPage and Delnor hospitals in the western suburbs. Since then, Northwestern has merged with hospitals in DeKalb, Sandwich, Huntley, McHenry, Woodstock and Wheaton.