Blessing Health System is a participant in the BJC Collaborative, a partnership among health care systems throughout Illinois, Missouri and Eastern Kansas.

The Collaborative was founded in October 2012 by BJC HealthCare (St. Louis), Memorial Health System (Springfield, Ill.), Saint Luke’s Health System (Kansas City), and CoxHealth (Springfield, Mo.) to improve the quality and efficiency of health care in the region.

While remaining independent, member and participant organizations will collaborate to achieve savings, deploy clinical programs and services to improve access to and quality of health care for patients, lower health care costs, and create additional efficiencies that will benefit patients and communities.

A significant benefit of the BJC Collaborative is the deepening of Blessing’s connection to the St. Louis and Springfield, Ill. health care markets, which are frequent sites of referrals for Blessing patients for specialized medical care or treatment. BJC HealthCare includes Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children’s Hospital, which are academic medical centers affiliated with Washington University School of Medicine.

The four founding members of the Collaborative have nearly 5,000 hospital beds, 52,600 employees and 6,933 employed and affiliated physicians across their adjacent service areas. The Blessing Health System has 327 licensed beds, 72 employed physicians, and 2,700 employees.