St. Peter’s Health explores partnership with Billings Clinic-Logan Health

St. Peter’s Health and Billings Clinic-Logan Health are exploring a closer partnership in Helena, from staffing and technology to purchasing and clinical services. The talks have been underway for about six months. The goal is to build a more resilient system that can do more with fewer redundancies across Montana.

St. Peter’s traces its history to 1880, when Henrietta Brewer saw a need for another hospital in the city. Early hospital work was documented by 1882, the first plans for St. Peter’s Hospital were drawn up in 1883, and the hospital became a reality in 1884. Today, St. Peter’s runs a 99-bed acute care facility and a 24-bed behavioral center, making it one of the city’s most visible health care anchors.

The unified, not-for-profit Billings Clinic-Logan Health serves 25 hospitals in 25 communities across Montana, northern Wyoming and the western Dakotas, and it is led by co-CEOs and governed by a board of community members and medical professionals. Billings Clinic and Logan Health united on Sept. 1, 2023, after announcing a signed letter of intent in February 2023.

If the relationship advances, the question is who would control the next round of decisions. The organizations have said they are moving toward a formal letter of intent that would spell out goals and objectives, but the practical questions are already clear: where jobs land, whether specialty services stay local, and how much authority remains in Helena over day-to-day operations versus a broader statewide network.

Patients would notice changes first in the parts of care that are easiest to centralize, including scheduling, purchasing, technology platforms and workforce planning. St. Peter’s also recently lost rural designation funding that supported forensic nursing services.

The partnership talk also comes after St. Peter’s and Carroll College signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a community health clinic and academic facility.