On Tuesday, Spectrum Health and Beaumont Health in Grand Rapids launched a new integrated health system.

The “integration” in the previous sentence is doing some of the heavy lifting. As of now, managers of the newly provisionally named BHSH Health say there will be no significant changes to staff or patients, and that the real integration has yet to happen.

But questions remain about how Spectrum plans to turn around a beleaguered Beaumont, which has tarnished its reputation in recent years.

CEO John Fox merge try – In three of the past two and a half years – cost-cutting measures have caused great public anxiety among staff and have led to a massive exodus of valuable doctors and high-value specialists. Beaumont’s attempt to merge with Illinois-based Advocate Aurora has resulted in vote of no confidence The leaders of doctors and nurses eventually shelved the deal.

The merger with Spectrum has hardly met with so much hostility. Many employees will tell you privately that they think this is an appropriate step to get the hospital off Fox and his colleagues.

In a statement to Crain’s, BHSH President and CEO Tina Freese Decker said the relationship between staff and managers is critical to the new leadership, and she looks forward to “engaging with physicians, nurses and other clinical partners.”

There’s also the open question of how much value the Beaumont name has after a tumultuous few years. Some say Spectrum will be careful to rename the system once synonymous with the region’s top doctors — “Do you have a Beaumont doctor?”

However, there may not have been a better time than now for a remake of Beaumont.

Hospitals across the state and across the country are grappling with a patient experience upended by the pandemic and need to rebuild. Government orders, and later increased staffing issues, led to the cancellation of the program. During the peak of the pandemic, emergency room patients were waiting six hours or more.

In other words, the pandemic has been a balancer between health systems, and everyone is suffering.

“Health care across the country has been devastated by the pandemic right now,” said Alex Calderon, president of Calderon Consulting Group, a transformation firm in Birmingham. “Because of the pandemic, an inefficient system has become even more inefficient. It Brought bad health care to everyone. There is no system statewide or even national that serves patients particularly well in a COVID environment. If you’re the new Beaumont-Spectrum system, nothing has been bigger in the history of health care than it is today Here’s your chance.”

Calderone believes Beaumont’s name has been tainted almost irreparably, and a new name is part of a need for healing between staff and management.

Mark Kopson, partner and head of the healthcare practice at Bloomfield Hills law firm Plunkett Cooney, said it’s hard to destroy a good brand name, and that Beaumont’s still has value.

“Insiders may feel that way, but John Q. Public still has a high opinion of Beaumont in southeastern Michigan,” Copson said. “It’s a legendary name locally, just like Spectrum is in West Michigan.”

Other details of Beaumont’s future plans are unclear. Freese Decker may have poured her hand into remaking Beaumont’s script.

The new entity will invest in Beaumont’s digital health, home services and health equity, she said.

Startups focused on digital health such as telemedicine and electronic health records raised $29.1 billion globally in 2021, more than double the amount raised in 2020. During the pandemic, we’ve seen Beaumont rivals Henry Ford Health and Detroit’s large providers provide more and more home services Wayne Health Group delivers mobile devices to patients’ homes, offering everything from vaccinations to diabetes care. of various services.

The pandemic has pushed the healthcare trend line forward by five years, and increased investment in those areas could propel Beaumont to the top spot in Metro Detroit.

“Digital health and home services can really level the playing field,” Copson said. “For those with money, there is a lot of room for improvement in telehealth and digital records access.”

The merger not only created the state’s largest employer with 64,000 employees, but it also created a financial giant that could shine in the capital markets.

For example, Spectrum held $1.1 billion in debt by the end of 2021. But it was flush with cash and could keep it afloat for 246.3 days without paying a cent. Its debt capitalization ratio is just 16.3%, well below Moody’s median of 24.9%.

Of course, this translates into a system where you can easily get more cash to invest in Beaumont.

The reason the new system makes a significant investment in its operations is simple – the market isn’t growing. Growth can only be achieved by stealing patients from competitors or creating new lines of business because the number of patients has not changed.

Compared to other states, Michigan’s population is growing at an extremely slow rate, with more residents dying than births in 2020. If plans are to increase patient numbers, the new system must invest in a better patient experience and market itself. Or it’s forced to rely entirely on selling more services, in line with the strategy of other systems on the market.

We may not know the entity’s full strategy for at least another year. A merger of this magnitude will take longer to complete.

For now, we’ll see if Freese Decker and company can keep Beaumont’s employees happy, and what’s next to restore its disreputable reputation.

This article first appeared in our sister publication, Crain’s Detroit Business.