Timeline: How Atrium Health grew from a single Charlotte hospital to one of biggest in US
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Atrium Health to double its size in major deal
Charlotte’s largest hospital system said it will combine with Wisconsin-based Advocate Aurora Health in another national expansion. Here’s everything you need to know.
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This story was originally published on May 11, 2022, and updated on Dec. 2, 2022.
What started as a single hospital sandwiched between Charlotte’s Dilworth and Cherry neighborhoods will now span 67 hospitals that serve more than 5.5 million patients.
Atrium Health finalized its expansion Friday through a combination with Advocate Aurora Health that doubled the size of the Charlotte hospital system. It’s the largest business deal to date for Atrium, which has grown rapidly in just the last few years through a number of mergers.
Here’s a timeline about Atrium:
- October 1940: Charlotte Memorial Hospital opens its doors on Blythe Boulevard. The site, now known as the Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center, remains the system’s flagship hospital, according to Atrium’s website.
- February 2016: Carolinas HealthCare System announces that Texas hospital executive Gene Woods would replace Michael Tarwater as CEO of the system. Tarwater would retire that June.
- February 2018: Carolinas HealthCare System changes its name to Atrium Health. The change was seen by experts as a sign of the hospital system’s ambitions to grow beyond the Carolinas. One day later, the rebranded hospital system announces plans to combine with Georgia-based Navicent Health, expanding to the south and central parts of the state.
- October 2020: Atrium announces it officially combined with Wake Forest Baptist Health, including the Wake Forest School of Medicine. The move, first announced in 2019, paves the way for a medical school in Charlotte — the largest city in the U.S. without a four-year medical school, Atrium said at the time.
- July 2021: Atrium finalizes its combination with Georgia-based Floyd health system. The deal, announced the previous fall, brings Atrium to 40 total hospitals and more than 1,400 care locations across the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama.
- March 2022: The hospital system provides detailed plans for its new innovation district around the medical school. The $1.5 billion district near the intersection of McDowell and Baxter streets will be named The Pearl, a nod to the city’s long-gone Brooklyn neighborhood. The project will include a medical school, hotel, residential tower, offices and retail. Company officials said construction is expected to begin by summer 2022.
- May 2022: Atrium strikes a deal with Midwestern hospital system Advocate Aurora Health. Combining with the hospital system doubles Atrium’s size and makes the combined organizations the fifth largest health system in the country. The system will be headquartered in Charlotte and will operate under the Advocate Health name.
- September 2022: Atrium’s merger reaches an unexpected regulatory snag. An independent Illinois regulatory body, the Health Facilities and Services Review Board, voted 3-2 to reject an application for the combination of the two systems. But shortly after that vote, the board opted to reconsider its decision. Regulators sought more information on how the deal was structured and how it would proceed operationally.
- November 2022: The deal gets back on track. The Illinois-based board votes unanimously to approve the application. The decision brings Advocate Aurora Health one step closer to combining with Atrium
- Dec. 2, 2022: The merger is finalized. Atrium Health and Advocate Aurora Health announced they completed a deal to combine systems, making it one of the largest systems in the U.S. The renamed Advocate Health, which will be headquartered in Charlotte, will serve nearly 6 million patients annually and is the fifth-largest nonprofit integrated health system in the nation.
This story was originally published May 11, 2022 at 11:00 AM.
Hannah Lang
The Charlotte Observer