Eight months after disclosing plans to merge their two health care networks, Froedtert Health and ThedaCare have announced that their joint organization will officially launch on Jan. 1.
Throughout the merger process, Neenah-based ThedaCare and Wauwatosa-based Froedtert Health had said they hoped to have the respective organizations combined by early 2024. Tuesday’s update provides a firm date for the merger.
“After months of thoughtful work, we’re excited for this journey to begin as a combined health system. This is an important and exciting moment for Wisconsin,” said Cathy Jacobson, president and CEO of Froedtert Health. “As a combined organization, we will continue to strengthen local health care, working closely with the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Froedtert Health – in partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin – operates Froedtert Hospital, the only academic medical center and adult Level I Trauma Center in eastern Wisconsin, located at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa.
The network also includes Froedtert Menomonee Falls Hospital, Froedtert West Bend Hospital and Froedtert Community Hospital with locations in Mequon, New Berlin, Oak Creek and Pewaukee. With more than 45 health centers and clinics, the system employs more than 13,000 employees, including more than 2,100 physicians. Froedtert’s revenue for fiscal 2022 totaled $3.3 billion.
ThedaCare operates eight hospitals and nearly three dozen clinics and health care centers in northeast and central Wisconsin, according to its website. The organization delivers care to more than 650,000 residents in 17 counties and employs approximately 7,000 providers and team members. ThedaCare’s revenue for fiscal 2022 totaled $1.2 billion.
Jacobson will assume the role of CEO of the combined health system starting in January, and Imran A. Andrabi, MD, ThedaCare president and CEO, will serve as president. Following a six-month transition period, Jacobson will retire and Andrabi will assume the role of president and CEO.
“We are confident our combined health system will continue to improve health and well-being for everyone we are privileged to serve, in line with our longstanding commitment to our communities,” said Andrabi. “This is just the beginning of an inspired future for health care in Wisconsin.”
In a press release issued Tuesday, the organizations shared aspirations guiding the merger process, those include being more responsive to community needs, while serving each patient’s unique needs, contribute to someone’s overall health to deliver equitable care, improving access, and enhancing and amplifying the Medical College of Wisconsin’s efforts to advance new therapies, evidence-based approaches to population health, integrated care delivery models and forward-thinking care team models.
As she prepares to lead the merger over the next six months, Jacobson said Tuesday that she’ll be focused on the organization’s external relationships, like its partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin, while Andrabi focuses on the nuts and bolts of integrating operations and developing a budget for the new organization.
“We’ve made a very clear plan. I call it my divide and conquer plan. There is a lot of work to do,” Jacobson said, adding that she’ll also be working on getting Network Health, which the new organization acquired from Ascension, better established, and getting the new board established.
No name changes yet
It has not yet been decided where the company’s corporate headquarters will be, only that it will remain in Wisconsin. The combined organization will have a network of more than 3,900 providers.
A new organization name has not been selected, leaders said Tuesday, echoing previous statements.
“For the time being, and rightly so, I think the two legacy brands are going to stay,” Andrabi said Tuesday. “We have a lot recognition and hard work that has gone into building those brands and our respective communities, so they will continue forward. And, given all the other work that is ahead of us, that is something we will tackle at some time in the future.”
As for growth, Jacobson said, the merger itself will not result in any expansions, but that market-specific expansion plans that ThedaCare and Froedtert have previously announced will be going forward.
Evolving relationship
The decision to merge Froedtert Health and ThedaCare wasn’t born out of necessity, said Jacobson this spring. It simply made sense due to both organizations’ shared values and goal of transforming health care services through increased innovation and more evenly distributed resources across the state.
In October 2022, when Froedtert and ThedaCare announced the creation of hospitals in Oshkosh and Fond du Lac with the help of the Medical College of Wisconsin, many wondered if a merger was imminent. At that time, Jacobson said no. In the months that passed, however, the organizations had time to strengthen their relationship.
“I would say we got to know each other even better as it went along. These are two organizations that knew how great we were from the outside and as we got to work together, we found out just how easy it was to come together and create those partnerships and how aligned we really were,” said Jacobson. “It became a natural next step where we just continued on.”
Hopes for future
As the organizations prepare to move forward as one entity, Andrabi said a key focus will be on population health.
“For me it has really been exciting, as a clinician, to think about the fact that within one health system we have the entirely ingenuity to serve a patient’s entire health care journey, whether it is rural health, community health, or suburban health, or academic health, we have all of it in one health system,” he said.
