Creative alliances offer alternatives to corporate mergers.

Healthcare organizations form strategic alliances for several reasons: To achieve economies of scale, to provide specialized clinical or other expensive services, and to pursue common charitable missions. To accomplish these objectives, however, not all organizations need to enter into the binding legal agreements that characterize statutory mergers or acquisitions. For those healthcare organizations, variations of traditional arrangements-such as joint ventures, management, and service agreements- and less traditional arrangements-such as rights of first refusal, limited sponsorship arrangements, joint resolutions, overlapping committee arrangements and similar structures-may provide a solution.