Carondelet Health, owner of St. Joseph Medical Center in Kansas City and St. Mary's Medical Center in Blue Springs, announced Monday it had signed a letter of intent to sell the hospitals to Prime Healthcare Services Inc. Carondelet, a part of Ascension Health, a Catholic health care system, had been trying to sell the two hospitals and some of its related facilities for at least two years. An attempt to become part of the HCA Health Midwest System was halted earlier this year when it appeared that federal regulators wouldn't approve the transaction because it would have made HCA too large a player in the Kansas City hospital industry.
