Spectrum Health System, commonly known as Spectrum Health, was a not-for-profit, integrated, managed care health care organization based in West Michigan.[2] It merged with Beaumont Health of Metro Detroit in 2022 to form Corewell Health. Spectrum Health's subsidiaries included hospitals, treatment facilities, urgent care facilities, as well as physician practices that served the western Michigan area.[3] Priority Health was a subsidiary health plan with one million members. Spectrum Health was the largest employer in West Michigan at the time of the merger with 31,000 staff, 4,200 physicians and advanced practice providers, including 1,600 members of the Spectrum Health Medical Group, and 3,200 volunteers.[4]
History
Spectrum Health was formally incorporated on September 19, 1997, after a high-profile legal battle, combining Butterworth Health System and Blodgett Memorial Medical Center,[5] making it the largest health care organization in West Michigan. In August 2000, Richard C. Breon was hired to lead the organization as CEO, and sought to form an integrated health care system.[6]
In 2012, Spectrum Health System was recognized as one of the Top 50 Integrated Health Care Networks in the United States by IMS Health.[7]
In July 2018, Tina Freese-Decker was named CEO to succeed Richard Breon.[8]
In October 2018 Spectrum closed on a merger with Lakeland Health, a health system in southwest Michigan consisting of 3 hospitals, 450 providers, and 4,000 employees. Spectrum Health Lakeland operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Spectrum Health and had two governing boards.
Merger with Beaumont Health
In June 2021, Spectrum Health announced plans to merge with Beaumont Health.[9] In 2022 Beaumont and Spectrum announced their merger was effective on February 1, 2022, because the federal government determined this would not violate antitrust regulations. The new system was temporarily called BHSH Health, with Spectrum Health CEO Tina Freese Decker as the head and with both existing headquarters operating.[10] Corewell Health, was later made the name of the health system.
Locations
Hospitals
Spectrum Health had facilities in numerous communities in western Michigan:[3]
Other facilities and services
Spectrum Health Continuing Care is West Michigan's largest provider of post-acute services, including rehabilitative, long-term acute, home and residential care. Spectrum Health has an air ambulance helicopter service, called Aeromed, that transports patients between accident scenes as well as between hospitals and the airport.[12][13] Spectrum Health Visiting Nurses Association provides home care services in the West Michigan area.[14]
The Lemmen-Holton Cancer Pavilion is an outpatient cancer center located in the Grand Rapids Medical Mile. It was developed to bring all cancer research and patient service delivery under one roof in the Spectrum Health System.
As of 2019 the organization has leased space in 26 places to house administrative employees. In 2019 it announced it would centralize its staff, totaling 1,200, into a single building in Downtown Grand Rapids.[15] The plans call for it to have eight stories.[16] The organization planned to spend $100 million. The Downtown Development Authority (DDA) of Grand Rapids approved Spectrum's plan in October 2021.[17]
