What are the potential benefits of a WakeMed-Atrium healthcare merger?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Atrium Health and parent Advocate pledge $2 billion and 3,300 Wake County jobs.
- Merger would fund upgrades and expand Cary, North Raleigh and Raleigh Campus.
- Would also create state’s largest virtual care network and nonprofit mental health system.
Backers of a proposed merger of WakeMed with Charlotte-based Atrium Health list several potential benefits to Wake County residents, but there are some for Atrium as well.
The two nonprofit health systems tout two headline-grabbing numbers: $2 billion in investment by Atrium Health and its parent company, Advocate Health, and 3,300 new healthcare jobs in Wake County over five years.
WakeMed says the money would help expand its hospitals in Cary and North Raleigh and develop the Garner Whole Health Campus, which will combine medical and mental health hospitals in one place. Most importantly, said WakeMed president and CEO Donald Gintzig, the money will pay to upgrade and expand the health system’s main campus in Raleigh.
WakeMed is in strong financial shape now, Gintzig said, but faces several challenges.
“Probably the biggest headwind is how we are going to rebuild a 65-year-old centerpiece of care in this community, one of the busiest trauma centers in the country, one of the busiest emergency rooms in the country, our Raleigh Campus in Southeast Raleigh,” he said.
Among the other possible outcomes of the merger, according to the two companies:
- It would result in the state’s largest virtual care network, adding at least 100,000 new virtual patient visits each year.
- WakeMed would have a close relationship with Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, which is part of Advocate Health. That would create new residency and fellowship opportunities and bring more cutting-edge treatments, WakeMed says.
- It would create the state’s largest nonprofit mental health care network, with more than 360 behavioral health inpatient beds and expanded outpatient services.
- WakeMed would adopt Atrium Health’s income thresholds for subsidized care. Both health systems now provide free care to people who make 300% of the federal poverty level; WakeMed would also provide discounted care to those between 300% and 400%.
What’s in it for Atrium?
Atrium is the largest hospital provider in the Charlotte region and its parent, Advocate Health, the nation’s third-largest nonprofit academic health system.
Growing even larger would help the company weather changes in healthcare financing, said Steve Smoot, who heads Advocate Health operations in North Carolina and Georgia. That includes tighter Medicaid eligibility requirements spelled out in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last summer, Smoot said.
Atrium’s size has helped it attract doctors, nurses and other workers who seek the stability of a large organization, Smoot said. It has also helped with purchasing and other economies of scale, he said.
At one point, the company noticed that its various hospitals were using a half dozen different types of gloves from different vendors.
“And just by talking with all of our clinicians and getting to one, we were able to negotiate millions of dollars in savings out of that,” he said. “And that’s just one of a hundred examples where we’ll benefit each other by getting our cost structure into a good situation.”
Bringing WakeMed into the fold would also help Atrium and Advocate diversify its portfolio, Smoot said, like an investor who buys different stocks.
“That allows you to have your ups and downs,” he said. “Healthcare is very local. Some communities will be flourishing while others are struggling. It gives us the opportunity to have strength in one place while we strengthen the other. You don’t have to make rash decisions.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "What are the potential benefits of a WakeMed-Atrium healthcare merger?."
