WARREN, Mich.—Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, plans to close a 105-bed hospital and reopen it 12 to 18 months later as an advanced inpatient and outpatient rehab center.

Officials said the system will close Henry Ford Macomb Hospital-Warren on March 31, citing an operating loss of more than $70 million over the past five years. They blamed the poor economic climate in southeast Michigan, a rise in uncompensated care and declining overall reimbursement. Henry Ford President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Riney told reporters in a conference call that none of the other facilities in the six-hospital system was losing money. Officials declined to say how much money they would invest in the project. Riney said the conversion would be similar to in 2010 when Henry Ford Cottage Hospital, Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., converted to an outpatient center. While there are no plans to move the planned rehab center to another site, Riney did say there's a chance the project would not happen, depending on findings reached in the course of due diligence. The system said in a news release that market research suggests the demand for inpatient rehabilitation will grow by 12% over the next five years and 26% in 10 years. “We are realigning our services to meet these needs,” Hospital CEO Barbara Rossmann said on the call.

As part of a branding campaign, McLaren is adding the system’s name to the names of all its facilities.

FLINT, Mich.—McLaren Health Care has renamed 11 subsidiaries and added the parent McLaren brand to each facility's name. The new names and logo reflect McLaren's plan to unify its brand across Michigan, Philip Incarnati, president and CEO of the eight-hospital system, said in a news release. “Letting area residents know that their local hospital is part of McLaren, part of a larger health system, is one of the goals of the rebranding,” Incarnati said. For example, 318-bed Ingham Regional Medical Center in Lansing, Mich., is now McLaren-Greater Lansing, and 338-bed Bay Regional Medical Center in Bay City, Mich., is now McLaren-Bay Region. The system said in the release that the changes were announced internally in September after focus groups reacted positively. A marketing campaign, which includes new signs and badges, start this month.

BAGLEY, Minn.—Clearwater Health Services will become part of Sanford Health on Feb. 1, pending approval expected this month by Sanford Health's board of trustees. Last week, the Clearwater County Board approved a definitive agreement reached after a letter of intent was signed in September. Sanford, a 20-hospital integrated healthcare system with headquarters in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Fargo, N.D., already has a management contract with Clearwater, whose operations include the 95-bed Clearwater County Memorial Hospital in Bagley with an attached clinic, an ambulance service and a Clearbrook, Minn., clinic. When the agreement becomes final, Clearwater Health Services will be known as Sanford Bagley. Terms include Sanford purchasing Clearwater assets and leasing its properties. Clearwater staff would become Sanford employees. Financial terms have not yet been disclosed. “This is a time of great change in healthcare, but also a time of great opportunity,” Paul Hanson, president of Sanford Health of Northern Minnesota, said in the release.

DETROIT—Detroit Medical Center, a six-hospital, formerly not-for-profit system now owned by for-profit, Nashville-based Vanguard Health Systems, has broken ground for its $78 million DMC Heart Hospital on DMC's campus in midtown Detroit. The facility, located on eight of the campus's 60 acres, will be the new home of DMC's Cardiovascular Institute and will have cardiologists, cardiac surgeons and vascular surgeons working in the same facility. The hospital will be managed by the institute and 45 heart-care physicians, according to a DMC news release. Plans call for having rooms for tests and noninvasive procedures on the first floor; catheterization laboratories and facilities for invasive cardiology procedures on the second; same-day and outpatient surgery facilities on the third; and office, clinical and administrative space on the fourth and fifth floors. Patients will not stay overnight. They will be admitted to 665-bed DMC Harper University Hospital and moved, as needed, to the heart hospital for tests and procedures. A $30 million, nine-story garage with room for 1,750 vehicles will go up next to the facility. Construction is expected to be completed in early 2014.

OTTAWA, Ill.—OSF Healthcare System, Peoria, Ill., entered a definitive agreement to acquire Ottawa Regional Hospital & Healthcare Center. The 99-bed hospital would be renamed OSF Saint Elizabeth Medical Center, with a deal expected to be finalized in the spring, according to a news release. The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board must approve the acquisition. Officials said they negotiated for 15 months before signing the agreement. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. “We have determined that partnering with OSF Healthcare will in fact enhance our ability to provide outstanding medical care,” Robert Chaffin, president and CEO of Ottawa Regional, said in the news release. “The new affiliation will provide local residents improved access to high-quality, cost-effective services.” OSF, meanwhile, is fending an attempt by the Federal Trade Commission to block the eight-hospital system’s plans to acquire 305-bed Rockford (Ill.) Memorial Hospital. OSF’s 235-bed St. Anthony Medical Center is one of two other hospitals in the northern Illinois city. A hearing on the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction blocking the deal is scheduled to begin Feb. 1 in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

ROYAL OAK, Mich.—Beaumont Health System plans this fall to open one of the nation’s first hospital-based combination cardiovascular research and medical device training centers, at its Royal Oak campus, Modern Healthcare sister publication Crain’s Detroit Business reported. The Beaumont Center for Innovation and Research in Cardiovascular Disease will conduct medical device research and serve as a finished-product training site for physicians, nurses and technical sales representatives, said Dr. Robert Safian, a cardiologist and director of the research center. “One of the purposes of the center is to promote research and develop (relationships with the medical device) industry so new cardiovascular technologies come to Beaumont,” he said. “We already conduct clinical trials, but this (center) will help us expand trials before the products are marketed, and afterward we will help transfer the technology into the community.” Safian also is Beaumont’s director of interventional cardiology and vascular medicine. The Beaumont research center expects to train 20 to 25 practicing physicians every three months to perform the procedures using the new medical devices after the products have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Safian said. Dr. Scott Dulchavsky, chairman of surgery and a clinical researcher at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, said it is unusual for a hospital to offer post-FDA approval training opportunities to employees of medical device companies. “That has normally been done by industry,” Dulchavsky said.