Nearly two years after NorthShore hospital system and Edward-Elmhurst Health merged, the health system is getting a new name.

       The system formerly known as NorthShore — Edward-Elmhurst Health will now be known as Endeavor Health, executives said Tuesday. The system’s nine hospitals and its medical group will work under the new brand, though no names of individual hospitals will change.

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       The system, formed when a merger between NorthShore University HealthSystem and Edward-Elmhurst Health closed in early 2022, includes nine hospitals: Highland Park, Skokie, Glenbrook and Evanston, as well as Swedish Hospital on Chicago’s North Side and Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Edward Hospital in Naperville, Elmhurst Hospital and Linden Oaks Behavioral Health, which has a campus in Naperville.

       Health system CEO J.P. Gallagher said the rebrand is intended to highlight that each of the hospitals and care options are part of one health system.

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       “It can be confusing and it's a mouthful,” he said, of the current name. “So this is a pivot for our entire organization, but really reinforces that we’re one family.”

       Rebranding the health system’s websites, uniforms and other communications, including with patients, will take place in the coming months, and a new advertising campaign is set to roll out in the first quarter of 2024. Replacing physical signs will take place over the next two years, Gallagher said.

       Gallagher did not disclose the cost of the changes, but said the health system could manage the expense responsibly.

       “It’s a significant investment, but it’s one that we’ve planned for,” he said.

       NorthShore — Edward-Elmhurst’s announcement of its new name comes after several leadership changes at the health system’s hospitals. In 2024, new presidents will take over at Evanston, Skokie, Glenbrook and Highland Park hospitals, all promoted from within the organization. The current president of Skokie Hospital will be promoted to president of the medical group’s operations, the president of Highland Park is moving over to Evanston, and the presidents of the other two hospitals are retiring.

       Gallagher said since the merger there have been changes to some other support positions, but no systemwide layoffs as a result of combining the two health systems.

       The new, merged health system is the third largest in Illinois, with nearly 1.4 million patients and more than 27,000 employees.

       The merger came after several years of rapid NorthShore growth and was expected to cause the hospital system to double in size since 2019. NorthShore acquired Swedish Hospital in 2020, and then scooped up Northwest Community in 2021.

       Before combining with Edward-Elmhurst, NorthShore attempted to expand through a planned merger with Advocate Health Care. But the two systems walked away from that deal in 2017 after a federal judge ruled in favor of the Federal Trade Commission, which had argued that the two systems together would have had enough leverage to impose price increases on Illinois health insurers.

       A larger, combined system allows patients to get care from providers they know while broadening access to specialty care, health system executives said in a statement.

       But some academics have raised concerns that combining hospital systems can lead to higher costs, because combined systems have more leverage to make health insurers pay higher prices that can be passed on to employers and consumers.

       Hospitals have long disagreed with that idea, and others have said mergers can provide health systems stability and smaller systems the ability to better cope with changes in health care reimbursement and technology.

       When the merger was announced, NorthShore and Edward-Elmhurst said they would each commit $100 million to their respective communities in the form of investment funds. The funds were expected to generate millions of dollars in interest annually that would be used to support partnerships with groups helping their communities.

       Through the fund, NorthShore and Edward-Elmhurst each anticipated putting $3 million to $6 million annually toward improving community health, health equity and local economic growth.

       Tuesday, the health system said it had awarded more than $10.6 million to dozens of community partnerships through the funds, with another round of recipients to be announced in January.

       sfreishtat@chicagotribune.com