Kootenai Health, the Coeur d'Alene-based hospital district that operates Kootenai Medical Center, has agreed to acquire a gastroenterology practice over the next year and a related endoscopy practice in 2014.

North Idaho Gastroenterology will retain its 12 employees under the new ownership, and the practice's member physicians, Drs. Michal James, Stanley Toelle, and Gavin Young, also will become Kootenai Health employees under the agreement, says Andrea Kalas-Nagel, a Kootenai Health spokeswoman.

The terms of the pending and planned transactions weren't disclosed.

North Idaho Gastroenterology will continue to provide services in its current location in the Lincoln Lacrosse Professional Building, at 1607 Lincoln Way, about a half-mile south of the KMC campus, Kalas-Nagel says. The hospital is located at the northwest corner of Lincoln Way and Ironwood Drive, just south of Interstate 90.

North Idaho Endoscopy Center PLLC, which the same ownership group operates and also is located in the Lacrosse Professional Building, will remain separate from Kootenai Health until January 2014, when the hospital district plans to acquire that practice, Kalas-Nagel says.

Separately from the gastroenterology transaction, practice member Dr. Randy Hopkins has announced plans to retire, and recruiting efforts are under way to replace him, she says.

The acquisition also is expected to enable Kootenai Health to bring additional gastroenterology services and physicians to North Idaho, she says. Gastroenterology is the field of medicine that specializes in treating disorders of the digestive system.