Sanford Health Halts Merger Process with Fairview Health Services

A hospital merger involving one of the largest healthcare providers in the upper Midwest will not be happening.

Fairview Health Services announced earlier today that it will no longer continue the merger process with South Dakota-based Sanford Health. The merger, which was originally set to wrap up this past March, had been delayed multiple times after the University of Minnesota, a partner of Fairview Health, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison had asked for more time to review the potential magnitude of the merger.

In a statement from Sanford Health, CEO Bill Gassen said the benefits they identified for a combined system with Fairview Health Services compelled them “to exhaust all potential pathways” to completing their proposed merger. But he said without support for the transaction from other stakeholders, they determined it was “in the best interest of Sanford Health to discontinue the merger process.”

The two healthcare providers had crafted a similar deal 10 years ago, but that plan was eventually blocked by legislators.