York Hospital and MaineHealth are in merger discussions, hospital officials announced Thursday. If the merger is approved, the southern Maine hospital could join the state’s largest health care system in about a year.

Financial pressures that would likely have resulted in cuts to health care services in the near future led York Hospital to request to join MaineHealth, said Dr. Patrick Taylor, York Hospital’s president and CEO.

Taylor said joining MaineHealth means York Hospital can remain open and maintain services.

“It’s become harder and harder to stay independent,” Taylor said in an interview with the Press Herald on Thursday.

Maine’s two largest health care systems — MaineHealth and Northern Light Health — have taken over other previously independent hospitals in recent years.

Among the mergers: Mid Coast Hospital joined MaineHealth in 2020, as did Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington in 2014. Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft merged with Northern Light Health in 2020.

Maine’s hospital systems have faced financial problems in recent years. Several birthing centers have closed, including the one at York Hospital in 2023, and Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville was shuttered this year.

Discussions between York Hospital and MaineHealth began about six months ago and over the next several months the two sides will work on aspects of the merger, including state approval through the Certificate of Need process, and approval by the Maine attorney general, Taylor said.

The Certificate of Need is a regulatory requirement that requires hospitals to prove that major changes, such as purchase of certain medical equipment or mergers, best serve the public.

Taylor said the potential economy of scale savings, in purchasing, staffing, recruiting and other costs, helped York Hospital officials decide in favor of joining MaineHealth.

“One example is buying an electronic medical records system,” Taylor said. “That would cost tens of millions of dollars to invest, and as an independent that’s cost prohibitive and almost impossible to do on your own.”

Adding to the financial pressure, York Hospital is not considered a rural hospital because it’s not in a remote area and too close to other hospitals, Taylor said. Rural hospitals — known as Critical Access Hospitals — receive additional funding from the federal government.

Dr. Andy Mueller, MaineHealth’s CEO, said in an interview with the Press Herald on Thursday that, with the merger, the health care system would be positioned to make investments in primary care and specialty care in inland York County, which has had problems with health care access.

“Continuing to provide access to care in southern York County is really important to our vision,” Mueller said.

Taylor said while the goal is to maintain clinical services, he expects there will be job cuts related to the merger.

“There will be some consolidation of nonclinical services, often referred to as back office staff,” Taylor said.

Details of how many jobs would be eliminated and other components of how the merger would work will be revealed later in the process, Taylor and Mueller said.