Between now and sometime in March, Cooper University Health Care and Cape Regional Health System will be working out a definitive agreement of their merger, WHYY reports.
Though the two health systems announced their intent to merge in December, it’s possible that the merger was in the works prior to then, according to Dr. David Dreyfus, an assistant professor at Rutgers Business School who focuses on health care operations. But like many things, the pandemic happened.
“They may have been eyeing [Cape Regional] pre-COVID,” he said, “but a lot of these kind of strategic objectives slowed way down during the pandemic.”
Hospital mergers and acquisitions were off to a strong start in early 2020 before the pandemic struck, according to management consulting firm Kaufman Hall. Nearly 30 deals were announced in the first quarter of 2020. Fewer than 15 were announced for the same period in 2021. There were 79 announced transactions by the end of 2020, compared to 92 in 2019.
Neither system is in dire straits. The Philadelphia Business Journal reported that Cooper generated revenue of $1.8 billion in 2021, while the smaller Cape Regional had revenue of $177 million the same year. Read more.
