Tacoma-based MultiCare Health System’s recent announcement that it plans to purchase the assets of Rockwood Health System here from a financially ailing Tennessee-based owner appears at first glance to be an ideal turn of events. 

The $425 million transaction will return the Rockwood Health System to nonprofit status, under which its facilities had operated for decades, and to in-state ownership by a health care network that appears intent on making a favorable impression here.

Hopefully, it also will remove the morale-killing cloud of financial uncertainty that has hung over Rockwood Health System while under the ownership of Community Health Systems Inc., particularly in recent months, as CHS has struggled under a $15 billion mountain of debt.

That company reported a $79 million third-quarter net loss that contributed to a sharp decline in its stock share price. It has sold off some other hospitals in recent months, and has been widely reported to be exploring additional divestitures, including a possible sale of the entire company, which no doubt has intensified a sense of instability within the facilities it still owns. 

To be sure, MultiCare will need to demonstrate that it can bring positive, sustaining new energy to Rockwood Health System, which includes Deaconess and Valley hospitals and Rockwood Clinic, the large multispecialty physician practice. 

However, it certainly appears to have the resources and motivation to breathe new life into the Spokane network, which is among this area’s largest employers and a crucial health care services provider.

MultiCare operates five hospitals on the West Side, including Allenmore Hospital, Auburn Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital, and Tacoma General Hospital. Its network also includes primary-, specialty-, and urgent-care clinics, and community outreach services, as well as the MultiCare Medical Associates physician group, and it employs more than 11,000 people.

“This is an important step for MultiCare, which will become the largest community-based, locally-governed health care system in the state when the transaction is complete,” said President and CEO Bill Robertson in a press release about the acquisition.

MultiCare subtly signaled a transaction of some type might be in the works here a couple of months ago when it used billboards to market virtual health care services to Spokane-area consumers. However, a MultiCare spokeswoman portrayed the billboards as part of an effort to broaden the reach of its virtual health care services. It turns out, happily, that the billboards were the precursor to a more significant expansion.

The change in ownership for Rockwood Health System is just the latest example of ongoing tumultuous changes sweeping the health care sector here and nationally. MultiCare executives have been making clear in their public comments that they expect this one to be beneficial not only for the organization, but also for health care consumers here and the community as a whole. We look forward to watching them fulfill that pledge, and hope for a good outcome.