Sherman Health Potential Partnership with Advocate Health Care

Sherman Health announced Tuesday its intent to partner with Advocate Health Care and join the largest health system in Illinois. The details of the partnership are still being decided, with the formal transaction expected by next summer.

If all goes as planned, Sherman Health will become Advocate Sherman Hospital sometime between May and July of 2013.

Scott Powder, senior vice president of strategy and growth at Advocate, said Sherman Health fits right into Advocate’s system with a similar commitment to serving the health and needs of the community.

“It really expands our geographic coverage and ability to provide new access points for the patients that we serve and will serve in the future,” Powder said.

The next several months will be spent in a “due diligence” phase of negotiations where the two parties will decide how the partnership will actually affect their organizations, plan for Sherman’s transition into the Advocate system and file legal paperwork for regulatory approval from the government.

How much money will be exchanged in the deal is still unclear, according to Powder, with tentative details still confidential.

For Advocate, Powder called growth an important piece of the system’s strategy.

“In this challenging health care environment, we have lots of dialogue going on at any given time with different organizations about ways we can work together to improve quality and safety and reduce costs,” Powder said.

Advocate is a nonprofit, mission-based health system affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ. Sherman has been an independent community hospital since its founding in 1888.

The Elgin hospital sought out potential partners in 2011, narrowing a field of more than a dozen hospital systems to two in July. Oak Brook-based Advocate Health Care was the final choice over Cadence Health, which formed in the March 2011 merger between Delnor Health System in Geneva and Central DuPage Health System in Winfield.

For full article from the Daily Herald by Tara Garcia Mathewson: www.dailyherald.com/article/20120719/business/707199960/