Jean Meyer, COO of Ascension Michigan, said in a statement that the agreement with Medstar expands its market and will brings additional medical services to patients in their homes.

"Working with MedStar's mobile care services and skilled paramedic providers, we are developing new and innovative ways of delivering seamless care to our patients, both before and after a hospital stay — aiding in healing and paving a long-lasting road to good health," Meyer said. "This will be especially important for our most vulnerable populations who have to rely on public transportation for follow-up care. We are excited about being able to provide this improved access to care."

COO Mark O'Halla said McLaren has been expanding its relationship with Medstar over the past several years to include its hospitals in Lapeer and Flint. Over the next several months, Medstar will begin serving many of its other 11 markets, except for Petoskey because of the distance from other markets.

"Medstar does a phenomenal job with the best response times, the best patient satisfaction and financial. McLaren recognized the value years ago of improving health care transport services," O'Halla said. "The other health systems came to the same conclusion."

O'Halla said Medstar's successful mobile health unit was the major reason McLaren decided to expand its relationship.

"We knew it would allow us to take better care of patients in the community, whether it is emergency transport, to another hospital or nursing home or for urgent home visits," he said. "All these services are imperative to how we provider better care to our patients."

Medstar also has reached an agreement with LifeFlight of Michigan to share air ambulance calls with the three health systems and other hospitals, Miller said. Previously, LifeFlight, which is owned by PHI Air Medical, an Arizona-based company, exclusively served eight-hospital Beaumont Health.

But Beaumont and LifeFlight have agreed to transition the air medical service to an independent program to serve other hospitals, according to Beaumont. LifeFlight of Michigan will remain the preferred air medical provider for Beaumont, but Miller said the air ambulances serving Medstar and its three health systems will be renamed.

Miller said the health systems decided it made more sense to consolidate their ambulance and post-acute care patient strategy with one company where it can participate in strategic planning at the board level.

"We are helping them understand the impact of services offered by a truly mobile health care organization," Miller said. "(People historically view ambulance companies as taking care of people in) car crashes or heart attacks. Everybody coming together around the idea that ambulances (and their crews) have a deployment advantage that can serve the greater patient population."