CMC, Dartmouth-Hitchcock to combine, but keep separate identities

Two of the state’s largest health-care systems — overseeing Catholic Medical Center and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center — want to combine forces into a $2.7 billion-a-year organization designed to expand patient services within the state. Officials stopped short of calling it a merger, saying the more than a half-dozen hospitals involved would retain their own names and local leadership under the combined system, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health GraniteOne.