GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The recently formed Beaumont Health and Spectrum Health system has announced its new name.

For nine months following the merger, the health care system had been being going by BHSH System. On Tuesday, it was announced that the health care system would officially be called Corewell Health.

Hospital leaders say Corewell refers to putting health and wellness at the core of what they do.

“It’s about defining who we are and where were going forward,” company President and CEO Tina Freese Decker said. “And then it’s having one name that binds us together.”

Freese Decker said an internal team at Spectrum began work on the name change earlier this year.

“We also worked with a company out of Chicago that excels and is an expert at this area. And then we surveyed our team members and out of 12,000 of our team members’ input, this name was inspired and influenced by what they gave to us,” Freese Decker said.

She couldn’t put a number on how many signs, stationary and other items that will need to be changed to reflect the new name.

“But I do know we’re taking a very thoughtful and efficient process for that,” she said. “Which is why it’s going to take about two years to do it because we want to be efficient and effective with our resources. So it’s things like, we use it till its end and then we’ll purchase.”

In 1997, right after the controversial merger between Butterworth and Blodgett hospitals, the change to Spectrum Health branding was rocky. Back then, hospital officials went with an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new attitude, trying to convince the public to go with the new name. Many at the time weren’t buying it. Spectrum officials eventually gave in and combined the original hospital names with Spectrum Health.

Freese Decker said Corewell was mindful of that this time around. All 22 hospitals in the group will also have their original names in their title.

“We wanted to make sure we had a unifying name across the state but that we also recognized the rich history of our organization and the legacy names that we have,” Freese Decker said.

—News 8’s Michael Oszust contributed to this report.