The Mayo Clinic, one of the biggest names in American medicine, is pushing into New England, home turf of health care powerhouses Mass General Brigham, Yale New Haven Health, and Dana-Farber, without buying a single hospital.
Its new entry point is South County Health, a struggling hospital in Rhode Island that is expected to unveil the clinical collaboration between the two next week. South County said the arrangement will give its physicians access to “world-class clinical expertise” and AI tools “at no additional cost for patients,” while keeping the hospital locally governed and owned, according to details obtained by the Globe.
South County will join the Mayo Clinic Care Network, a group of vetted independent hospitals with access to Mayo specialists, case reviews, and AI-enabled tools.
“We believe there is another path,” South County chief executive Aaron Robinson said in a statement, arguing that hospitals typically have had to sacrifice independence to gain the scale and expertise to compete.
Mayo spokeswoman Caroline Auger said the relationship does not represent a targeted expansion of the medical giant’s physical presence in New England.
But it is part of a broader growth strategy for Mayo, which is based in Minnesota and often touted as the top hospital in the world. It has built a relationship with independent hospitals, offering clinical expertise, technology, and supply chain. There are many community hospitals that, similar to South County, are struggling to survive on their own and can use the help of a well-known national name.
Executives at the major hospital systems in the Boston region “should be concerned,” said J.B. Silvers, a former Harvard faculty member who worked for the Joint Commission, a hospital accreditation body.
“They may like to say competition’s good, but they don’t really want competition, especially when it’s right in their backyard,” said Silvers, now a health care finance professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “That’s why they’ve all expanded themselves.”
A system such as Mayo can build a presence in a new market without taking on a hospital’s liabilities, buildings, and operating issues, said Kirat Kharode, a former hospital executive and founder of HealCo, which helps employers manage specialty health care costs. “Mayo’s expertise becomes an extension of the local clinical team when it’s needed.”
Robert Hackey, a Providence College health services professor, called the partnership a “branding strategy” that he believes could be effective.
South County Hospital has been seeking a larger partner for years. This collaboration “would offer an opportunity to take advantage of a national brand with an established reputation” and could be a way to “differentiate the hospital from other local institutions with deeper pockets,” Hackey said.
In return, the Mayo Care Network collects an undisclosed fee. The network has members worldwide, but only one other in New England: Middlesex Hospital in Connecticut, which joined in 2015. In practice, Middlesex physicians can consult directly with Mayo specialists when they think it would help a patient.
The logic is simple, said Errol Norwitz, former chief executive of MGB’s Newton-Wellesley Hospital, now executive director of a health and innovation center at Babson College in Wellesley.
Health care is a “$5.4 trillion pie, and systems want a bigger slice,” Norwitz said.
The South County deal is “quite strategic, but also a little opportunistic,” said Norwitz. With a larger commercial payer mix and lucrative specialized services, like orthopedics and cardiology, “they’re cherry-picking the best opportunities, as good businesses do.”
Mayo’s name has long had a thin presence in the region. It ran a lab in Andover for several years before closing it in 2016, saying at the time it wasn’t close enough to a Mayo practice. South County was selected to join the Mayo Clinic Care Network by demonstrating a commitment to quality and patient-centered care, the organization said.
South County, meanwhile, has been looking for a boost.
The 100-bed hospital has lost money on operations in each of the last three fiscal years, including $7.2 million on $237 million in revenue in fiscal 2025, with investment gains covering the shortfall, according to a bond offering document dated Sept. 22. Its share of adult inpatient discharges decreased, while Medicare’s share of patient revenue rose over the last two years. Management cites the “unfavorable change in payor mix” among the reasons for weaker results.
South County may also need “access to capital” from an unidentified partner, according to the filing, which is tied to a $73 million bond financing to fund energy plant upgrades, repay existing debt, and implement the a costly electronic patient records system.
Three health care executives in Rhode Island, multiple government officials, and others familiar with South County’s business dealings told the Globe the hospital also has been in talks with HumanityCorp, a Virginia-based private equity firm that has worked with Mayo to grow its business of sourcing supplies for other hospitals. In 2024, the two jointly launched Inspirity Health Partners, which works with independent community health systems on supply chain and financial operations.
Auger, the Mayo spokeswoman, said HumanityCorp is not part of this specific deal with the Mayo Clinic Care Network. Representatives with HumanityCorp and Inspirity did not respond to the Globe’s questions about the matter.
Matt Moeller, a spokesman for South County, declined to answer questions about HumanityCorp, saying, “We are only commenting on our clinical collaboration.”
Norwitz, of Babson, said he is optimistic about bigger players disrupting health care around New England. At the same time, he said, Mayo Clinic may face some challenges in the nation’s smallest state, one that has lower reimbursement rates and a more complicated landscape.
“What works in Cleveland, Chicago, or Miami doesn’t often work in Rhode Island,” Norwitz said. “It’s a smaller captive population. And, frankly, there’s two large health care systems that are already struggling. Rhode Island, for health care, is tough.”
Dan McGowan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.