AHA Study: Hospital Mergers & Acquisitions as a Tool to Sustain Community Care
A March 2026 study by the American Hospital Association provides information on the benefits of hospital integrations. In order for hospitals to keep pace in an environment of rapid change they must invest in clinical technology, specialized staff, data systems and facilities. They therefore need flexibility to pursue a range of strategic partnerships in order to strengthen care delivery and manage risk. These arrangements can preserve and expand access, connect patients to specialist expertise, support consistent quality across a broader community footprint, and help hospitals build the scale needed to invest in modernization.
Read the AHA Fact Sheet about Hospital Mergers
Key takeaways
Mergers and acquisitions:
- Help reduce health care costs and create a fiscally sustainable environment for health care delivery for patients and communities. Research has found that mergers are associated with a 3.3% reduction in annual operating expenses per adjusted admission. Additional research finds operating expenses fell by roughly 5-6% on a per-bed basis.
- Improve quality through investments in meaningful clinical and operational integration, shared clinical leadership, common care pathways, integrated data/EHR and dashboards and disciplined performance management
- Improve access particularly in underserved communities
- Protect hospitals with higher share of Medicare and Medicaid patient populations. Federal payment policy influences financial viability because payment shortfalls compress cash flow limiting a hospital ability to provide services and invest in needed technology, people and services.
In this ever-changing environment, hospitals need continued flexibility to pursue strategic opportunities and partners as they overcome massive increases in the cost of caring, adjust to changing patient and community demographics, adopt new care delivery and payment models and innovate for the future.
Stay up to date with the latest information about the proposed WakeMed & Atrium Health strategic combination.