MN AG announces oversight deal for hospital merger

The planned merger of North Memorial Health and South Dakota-based Sanford Health is moving forward.

This development follows the announcement by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Friday that the two health systems have reached a 10-year oversight agreement after his office reviewed the merger plan, which was first announced in May.

The 10-year agreement is far longer than Sanford’s initial commitment to maintain core services at North Memorial’s Robbinsdale hospital for only two years.

Terms of the agreement include $600 million in investments in North Memorial’s Maple Grove and Robbinsdale hospitals, and maintaining the Level 1 trauma center in Robbinsdale for at least a decade.

Among other terms, the agreement also includes commitments to honor all collective-bargaining contracts, maintain a corporate presence in Minnesota and maintain air and ground ambulance services in the state.

“We have agreed to respect all the collective bargaining agreements that are in place, and there will be no job eliminations associated with this integration, because we all agree that healthcare is fundamentally local,” Trevor Sawallish, chief executive at North Memorial Health, said at a press conference Friday outside of the Robbinsdale hospital.

The oversight agreement states that the combined health system “shall not reduce the scope of reproductive health care and gender-affirming care services” at its Minnesota locations as of the closing date of the merger, “to the extent consistent with applicable law and regulations.”

“We have a ground-breaking agreement to protect Minnesotans,” Ellison said in a news release. “The commitments and expressions of strong intent that Sanford Health and North Memorial Health have made to make significant investments in facilities and people and maintain key services in Minnesota — and their willingness to be held accountable to those commitments in an oversight agreement for 10 years — are in the public interest.”

The agreement calls on Sanford Health leadership to hold quarterly meetings with the Minnesota attorney general “to discuss integration, operations, and adherence to the terms of the oversight agreement” for a period of 10 years.

“As one nonprofit health system, we will preserve essential care at Robbinsdale Hospital, expand access to specialty care, invest in our people, create a more resilient emergency and trauma network and strengthen care across rural and urban Minnesota,” Bill Gassen, president and chief executive officer of Sanford Health, said in a news release.

For the past several months, a coalition of organizations has been advocating for a community benefits agreement to protect patients, healthcare workers and Minnesota’s healthcare system amid significant federal cuts to healthcare funding.

Minister JaNaé Bates Imari, co-director of ISAIAH, represented the coalition at the press conference outside North Memorial’s Robbinsdale Hospital. She said the merger is “a really good thing” because it guarantees the hospital’s long-term viability.

“This hospital serves a significant Black and Brown population, working-class families, Medicaid patients, and people for whom losing this hospital does not simply mean driving a few more miles, it can mean losing access to care altogether,” Bates said.

She said this merger will bring greater stability and investment to the hospital serving the North Minneapolis community.

In addition to its two hospitals in Robbinsdale and Maple Grove, North Memorial has 22 clinics, urgent and emergency care throughout the Twin Cities, as well as medical transportation services in Minnesota.

Sanford Health is the largest rural health system in the U.S., operating hospitals and clinics across the upper Midwest, including Minnesota. The merger marks Sanford Health’s expansion from its Sioux Falls base into the Twin Cities market, following a previous deal with Fairview Health Services that fell apart three years ago.

The two health systems had previously said they planned to finalize the merger this year, pending state and federal approval.