St. Luke's Hospital and BJC Health have signed a letter of intent for a proposed affiliation, the Chesterfield-based system announced Wednesday. Patients can continue seeing their current providers and keep scheduled appointments while the two organizations work out the details, St. Luke's said.
According to firstalert4.com, St. Luke's and BJC have signed a Letter of Intent that would have St. Luke's join BJC, and the two organizations will spend the coming months working toward a definitive agreement. The announcement framed the move as an attempt to create a stronger, more connected network to better serve patients, per the station's report. As reported by STLtoday.com, the proposal would affiliate St. Luke's with BJC, and St. Luke's has been described as the last operator of an independent large hospital in the St. Louis area.
Vincent Ferrari, chairman of the St. Luke's board, said the decision followed a deliberate and thorough evaluation process, per the same STLtoday.com account. Ferrari said the board sees joining BJC as a way to continue St. Luke's legacy and shape its future. Andy Bagnall, St. Luke's president and chief executive, said health care delivery demands and community needs are changing rapidly, and that joining BJC could strengthen patient care in ways St. Luke's could not easily achieve alone.
A Vast Size Gap Between the Two Systems
BJC is Missouri's largest hospital network and employs nearly 50,000 people across Missouri, southern Illinois and eastern Kansas. St. Luke's 2025 annual report lists 5,224 medical staff and employees and 30 locations across the St. Louis region.
BJC plans to give St. Luke's patients access to specialists across its network and WashU Medicine, and intends to spend on clinical technology, equipment, buildings and physician recruitment at St. Luke's, according to the same reporting. Nick Barto, BJC's president and chief executive, said the shared goal is to expand access to differentiated, high-quality care while serving growing west St. Louis communities for generations to come. St. Luke's said patients should see no change in services in the meantime.
What Comes Next
BJC and St. Luke's will negotiate a definitive agreement and seek regulatory approval, a process expected to take months, per the STLtoday.com account.
BJC has walked this road before. The system merged with Kansas City-based Saint Luke's Health System in January 2024 after the two signed a letter of intent in May 2023 and satisfied regulatory reviews, a combination pitched at the time as a roughly $10 billion system with 28 hospitals and hundreds of clinics and service centers, according to a statement from Saint Luke's Health System. That deal kept BJC HealthCare operating under its own name in St. Louis and Saint Luke's under its name in Kansas City.
