Little Company Of Mary Reaches Merger Deal With OSF HealthCare

EVERGREEN PARK, IL — Little Company of Mary Hospital is inching closer to a merger deal with central Illinois Catholic health care system OSF HealthCare. The organizations’ boards have adopted a definitive agreement toward becoming one organization, with the merger anticipated to take place Feb. 1, 2020.

Both boards have decided on a new name: OSF HealthCare Little Company of Mary Medical Center. A merger with the Evergreen Park hospital would give OSF HealthCare a clinical presence in Chicago. The hospital chain maintains relationships with the University of Illinois at Chicago, Matter and Avia, Crain's reported.

“A focused discernment went into the decision to rename our facility,” Sister Sharon Ann Walsh said in a news release, the L.C.M, Chairperson of the Board of Directors. “As our two congregations came together and discussed ways to reflect our new partnership, it was important to both communities that we found a name that would preserve our strong heritage.”

The agreement will allow OSF HealthCare and LCMH to share services, develop and expand academic partnerships. LCMH is a community-based, Catholic hospital with 298 beds in Evergreen Park, as well as a Cancer Center affiliated with the Medical Oncology Group of the University of Chicago Hospitals, and 10 satellite facilities.

“We admire the longstanding commitment to the gift of life demonstrated by Little Company of Mary,” said Sister Judith Ann Duvall, O.S.F., Major Superior and Chairperson of the Board of Directors. “As colleagues in this sacred calling of health care ministry, we are honored to carry on the Little Company name and tradition as they join our OSF family.”

Plans to explore a possible merger between the two Catholic healthcare systems were announced in July. Over the next few months, the two organizations will seek the necessary regulatory and canonical approvals while continuing work on the planning of strategies to meet the needs of the communities in the southwest Chicago area.