Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health is exploring the sale of seven hospitals in two different markets as it continues to restructure its national footprint and improve its operating performance.
The nonprofit Catholic health system recently signed letters of intent for two separate transactions — one with Grand Forks, N.D.-based Altru Health System and another with Pittsburgh-based UPMC.
Under the proposed deal with Altru Health, CommonSpirit would transfer ownership of CHI St. Alexius Health in Bismarck, CHI St. Alexius Health Turtle Lake and CHI St. Alexius Health Garrison. Effective March 1, 2026, CommonSpirit will also complete the sale of CHI St. Alexius Health Devils Lake (N.D.) to Altru Health.
Separately, UPMC is in talks to acquire Trinity Health System — a three-hospital network based in Steubenville, Ohio, and owned by CommonSpirit. Trinity Health System includes:
- Trinity Center West, a 200-bed hospital in Steubenville
- Trinity Hospital Twin City, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Dennison
- St. Clairsville (Ohio) Neighborhood Hospital, a 10-bed microhospital.
The sale discussions come as CommonSpirit aims to continue to improve its overall financial performance.
The 137-hospital system ended fiscal 2025 — the 12 months ending June. 30, 2025 — with a $225 million operating loss (-0.6% operating margin), up from an $875 million loss (-2.4% margin) the previous year.
In the first quarter of fiscal 2026 — the three months ending Sept. 30, 2025 — CommonSpirit reported a $165 million operating loss (-1.6% operating margin), compared to a $331 million loss (-3.5% margin) during the prior-year period.
Over the next two years, CommonSpirit aims to save $500 million through Project Impact — multi-year initiative that will accelerate operational improvements and build a more sustainable cost structure — under the leadership of CEO Wright Lassiter III and CFO Michael Browning, who joined from Columbus-based OhioHealth on Jan. 2.
“You’ve got to think about what’s your ability to transform your cost structure? What’s your ability to use technology to transform how you deliver care and where you deliver care, and who delivers that care?” Mr. Lassiter said during a Nov. 4 fireside chat at Becker’s CEO+CFO Roundtable. “What’s your ability to use transformation to change how you operate? You have to start with that belief that doing just what you’ve done, but doing more of it, is likely not a winning solution.”
Project Impact will hone in on several key areas, including IT, revenue optimization, clinical operations and supply chain management.
“We set a fairly aggressive goal to drive between $5 billion and $6 billion worth of value creation across the organization over the next 36 months, Mr. Lassiter said. “While we’ve achieved a lot of synergies and operating model improvements, there’s still a lot of value we haven’t unlocked in the organization.”
Mr. Lassiter emphasized that the initiative goes well beyond traditional cost-cutting.
“You can’t cut your way to success. We can’t say, ‘Let’s reduce costs by X and that will get us there.’ Project Impact is an all-hands-on-deck, 36-month initiative,” he said. “There are still sacred cows in the organization — corners of the organization that haven’t been touched like they need to be from an efficiency perspective. So let’s look at everything; nothing is off the table.”
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