The Detroit Medical Center is making money as CEO Mike Duggan prepares to leave at the end of the year, but the eight-hospital system still faces challenges as it makes the leadership transition. The region's fourth largest health system has made a profit for eight straight years since Duggan took the helm in 2004. Last year, it made an estimated $117 million profit—its largest during that time, according to Minnesota-based hospital analyst Allan Baumgarten. Its parent company, Vanguard Health Services Inc., has spent $200 million of a promised $1 billion to improve the DMC's facilities. Baumgarten said the proposed merger of the market-leading Henry Ford and Beaumont health systems "is partly a response to a perceived challenge from a reinvigorated DMC system."