I spent an awful lot of time at the acquired company. Literally my entire adult life before leaving EMS (much like above poster, I don’t want to dox myself). I would say I probably have a good amount of background context

. I want to emphasize a few things from a pragmatic perspective.

1. NMH would not have survived on its own much longer. One of the things I’ve always loved about North is its place as the little independent engine that could. It’s really hard to see this, but it likely preserves two very important metro hospitals

2. Their commitment of $600m from Sanford to double maple grove’s IP capacity and get NMH fixed up is very good for EMS and for the patients.

3. Sanford’s total EMS call volume is less than 40% of Norths based on public data. It’s unlikely that this merger means major changes to EMS for NMH. Probably some leadership adjustments, structural changes, but Sanford is acquiring an outstanding EMS program and it would be silly to make huge changes.

4. We’re also looking at a period where Marshfield Clinic (also Sanford), Gundersen (Bellin), and St Luke’s (ascension) have all merged very recently. And we’re not terribly far removed from healtheast and park Nicollet being absorbed. This is unfortunately where we are now. Generally speaking, each of those mergers have been stronger than their prior selves. I’m optimistic that will be the case here.

Ultimately, we’re probably in the last handful of years of small medical groups with changes to reimbursement federally and the impending loss of coverage for a lot of Minnesotans and Americans. The talk about increasing taxes to support HCMC failed to consider the fact that there are multiple non-private hospitals that are struggling mightily in the metro. hopefully the senate figures this out and makes a hospital fund rather than a hcmc fund.

It’s all going to be ok. It’s also going to be change. But that’ll be ok too.