CommonSpirit will extend the University of Utah Health’s capacity to provide care to more people along the Wasatch Front, the two organizations announced this week.

WHY IT MATTERS

The clinical alliance will increase access to medical care closer to home, CommonSpirit Health and U of U Health said Wednesday. 

To improve population health and care delivery across a wide spectrum of patient needs, U of U Health providers will work with the CommonSpirit hospitals, explained Andrew Gaasch, CommonSpirit Mountain Region president.

"At CommonSpirit, our mission calls us to relentlessly innovate so we can provide the highest standard of compassionate care to every person, including the most vulnerable," Gaasch, said in a statement.

The university, the state's only academic health system, has provided medical care to patients and training to providers in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada since its founding in 1965.

THE LARGER TREND

Two years ago, CommonSpirit Health was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted medical operations across 140 facilities in several states, affecting its electronic health record systems and exposing the personal information of some patients, family members and caregivers.

That year, cybersecurity breaches in healthcare continued to skyrocket, though some argue that hospital mergers and acquisitions leave larger, combined organizations attractive to threat actors vulnerable to flaws in older legacy systems. 

After the 2017 merger of DignityHealth and Catholic Health Initiatives, the combined CommonSpirit system became the second-largest non-profit hospital chain, with more than 350 hospitals nationwide. 

The nonprofit healthcare organization purchased the five Utah hospitals in Davis, the Jordan Valley, Mountain Point and Salt Lake in 2023. 

ON THE RECORD

"We keep the patient at the center of everything we do and are proud to partner with CommonSpirit’s exceptional teams and hospitals to extend access for people in our communities and region," said Dr. Michael L. Good, University of Utah Health CEO and senior vice president for health sciences. "Working together, we will do what we all trained in healthcare to do – improve health and quality of life."