Community Health Systems revealed its intention to sell off nearly 40 hospitals.

CHS said late Monday that it plans to create a new for-profit chain named Quorum Health Corporation that will operate in 38 hospitals across Alabama, Illinois, Georgia, Pennsylvania and 12 other states, in areas with populations of 50,000 or less, many in places where the hospital is the sole acute care provider. Quorum Health will also include management and consulting services that currently serve about 150 non-affiliated hospitals.

During the past 30 years, Community Health Systems has developed into what CHS CEO Wayne Smith called a "complex and diversified portfolio" including hospitals, outpatient centers, and health systems, adding that the move to establish Quorom "will realign our portfolio into two strong and focused companies."

On the one side Quorum will be a network of rural hospitals focusing "on the changes in the healthcare delivery system, which are different in smaller community hospitals than in our larger and more urbanized markets," Smith explained.

Tennessee-based Community Health Systems, for its part, will be able to evolve with a core business of more than 25,000 hospitals beds and a growing network of outpatient facilities, Smith said. Now, CHS is going to focus on "high-opportunity markets and in areas where we are building regional healthcare networks," in states like Texas, Tennessee and Washington.

"We view this transaction as the best next step," Smith said.

This article originally appeared on Healthcare IT News sister site Healthcare Finance.