Corewell Health is a non-profit healthcare system located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It was formed as a result of the merger between Beaumont Health, located in Metro Detroit, and Spectrum Health, located in West Michigan, in 2022. Corewell is currently the largest healthcare system in Michigan, based on its inpatient admissions and net patient revenue. The organization has its headquarters in Grand Rapids and employs over 60,000 people.
History
Spectrum Health
Spectrum Health was formally incorporated on September 19, 1997, after a high-profile legal battle, combining Butterworth Health System and Blodgett Memorial Medical Center, making it the largest health care organization in West Michigan.[1]
In October 2018 Spectrum closed on a merger with Lakeland Health, a health system in southwest Michigan consisting of 3 hospitals, 450 providers, and 4,000 employees. Integration has begun and is underway. Spectrum Health Lakeland will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Spectrum Health and will uniquely have two governing boards.
Beaumont
Groundbreaking began in 1953 for "Oakland Hospital," but because of a delivery mix-up and to further distinguish itself from nearby Oakwood Hospital, the name of the new hospital was changed to William Beaumont Hospital (WBH). The doors were officially open on January 24, 1955 with 238-beds in Royal Oak, Michigan.[2] The hospitals, the overall health system and the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine are all named for William Beaumont, a U.S. Army surgeon who became known as the "Father of Gastric Physiology" following his research on human digestion started at Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, Michigan.[2][3][4][5]
In 1965, Botsford General Hospital opened with 200 beds adjacent to the historic Botsford Inn, a former stagecoach stop on Grand River in Farmington Hills. The hospital opened as an expansion to Zieger Clinic Hospital in Detroit, opened by Dr. Allen Zieger in 1944.
On October 1, 2007, Beaumont acquired Bon Secours Hospital in Grosse Pointe, rebranding it as Beaumont Hospital Grosse Pointe.[6]
In March 2014, the Beaumont Health System, along with Botsford Health Care and Oakwood Healthcare, signed a letter of intent to merge their operations.[7]
In 2020, Beaumont and Advocate Aurora Health, a 28-hospital system in Illinois and Wisconsin, announced plans to merge into a combined company worth $17 billion.[8][9] These plans were called off in October 2020, in part because physicians, lawmakers, staff, and donors were concerned that it would harm patient care.[9][10]
Merger and creation of Corewell
In June 2021, Beaumont announced plans to merge with Grand Rapids-based Spectrum Health. Following federal government approval, the two systems announced their merger would be effective February 1, 2022. The combined system was temporarily named BHSH Health, before its permanent name, Corewell Health, was announced later that year. Spectrum Health CEO Tina Freese Decker became CEO of the combined organization, and John Fox, the head of Beaumont Health, resigned on February 4, 2022.[1] The combined organization is headquartered in Grand Rapids, though Beaumont's Southfield headquarters remain open as a Detroit-area office.[2]
In 2019, Spectrum announced it would centralize its staff, totaling 1,200, into a single building in Downtown Grand Rapids.[3] The plans called for it to have eight stories.[4] The organization planned to spend $100 million. The Downtown Development Authority (DDA) of Grand Rapids approved Spectrum's plan in October 2021.[5] Following the merger with Beaumont, Corewell's headquarters would be located at the new facility.[6]
Beaumont Children's Hospital now Beaumont Children's, was announced in 2009. Eighty-three sub-specialists, a 40-bed pediatric unit, eight-bed pediatric ICU and 64-bed NICU had been in place at Beaumont, Royal Oak since 2004. In 2008, Beaumont joined the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions.[12]
Facilities include a dedicated specialty inpatient pediatric unit at Beaumont, Royal Oak and inpatient units at the Beaumont hospitals in Troy, Dearborn and Farmington Hills for children with less serious conditions. Specialty pediatric services including emergency care, hematology-oncology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, cardiology, neurology, newborn and pediatric intensive care, pediatric surgery and craniofacial surgery are available at outpatient locations throughout Metro Detroit.
Beaumont Children's cares for more than 100,000 pediatric emergency and after-hours visits every year and 17,000 babies are delivered each year as well.
On June 24, 2022, hours after the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Corewell Health announced that most abortion services would no longer be offered at the system's facilities, despite court orders which kept the procedure legal in Michigan.[14] Following public pressure, including calls for a boycott of the system, Corewell reverted to its previous policy, providing abortion when deemed medically necessary.[15]
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