Washington Health Care Services (WHS) has signed a definitive agreement to merge with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and will change its name to UPMC Washington.

Through the deal, signed October 18, UPMC will become the sole corporate member of The Washington Hospital (TWH), the flagship 278-bed healthcare provider under WHS, giving it certain decision-making powers and responsibilities within the organization. It will also appoint one-third of TWH’s board of directors.

UPMC and WHS have been discussing a potential merger since June when they signed a nonbinding letter of intent. The two already have formed partnerships around local cancer treatment, share specialties within the same communities, and have additional partnerships in telestroke, specialty pharmacy services, and Clinical Connect HIE electronic records. UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Express Care clinic and other specialty clinics are also located on the WHS Washington Hospital campus.

“The objective of the affiliation is to strategically align and integrate the operations of WHS and its subsidiaries and affiliates into the UPMC system in order to promote the mutual purposes of the WHS and UPMC organizations and to more effectively and efficiently fulfill the healthcare needs of the communities served by the systems,” said both organizations in their affiliation agreement.

WHS also owns the 49-licensed-bed WHS-Greene Hospital in Waynesburg, and has more than 40 off-site locations throughout three counties, as well as diagnostic centers, outpatient care facilities, the Wilfred R. Cameron Wellness Center, and hospice care facilities. Back in June, it said it expected there to be no layoffs among its 2,000 staff members, which includes more than 350 primary care and specialty physicians, at WHS and WHS-Greene Hospitals.

UPMC is headquartered in Pittsburgh and affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. It has 40 hospitals and, as of June 2023, an operating revenue of $13.8 billion, according to its unaudited financial statement on the first months of this fiscal year.

The deal still must go through the customary regulatory process, but if approved, it would leave ACMH Hospital in East Franklin and St. Clair Hospital in Mt. Lebanon as the only independent health systems in the Pittsburgh area, which has raised the worries of area unions that say increased hospital consolidation results in service cuts and higher care costs, according to local news outlet, the Observer-Reporter.

No completion date for the merger has been set.

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