Vanguard Health Systems is “marching forward” on its acquisition of Detroit Medical Center, as well as other development projects in the Nashville health care company’s pipeline.

On a conference call with analysts this morning, leaders of the Nashville-based hospital chain said they are interested in acquisitions beyond the Midwestern deals that would push Vanguard’s revenues well north of $5 billion.

Asked whether the company will remain active or “take a breather” from acquisitions given the size of its Detroit deal and the planned Chicago purchase of two hospitals, Vanguard Chairman and CEO Charlie Martin indicated that there’s no plan to sit on the sidelines.

“We don’t have any goal to double the company in three years or whatever, but I do think there will be a growing number of opportunities to bring in markets and multiple hospitals within a market that are very much in the sweet spot of our acquisition strategy,” he said.

Vice Chairman Keith Pitts said that, in the meantime, Vanguard is working to finish due diligence and a definitive agreement for the deal, which would add eight hospitals and $2 billion in revenue to 15-hospital Vanguard. From there, the company will have to go through Michigan’s certificate of need process and get approval from the state’s attorney general, he said.

“We’ll be marching forward, and expect probably an early fall kind of closing,” Pitts said. When the deal was announced in March, DMC officials told local media they were shooting for a June 1 close.

Martin said the deal is a “sizeable transaction” that gives Vanguard the opportunity to do what it originally set out to do – enter major metro markets and improve operations and capital structures to gain a market leading position. This deal is different from anything else the company has purchased, he said, because it’s “not broken managerially” and in fact is ahead of Vanguard in some ways – like its implementation of electronic health records.

“They’re far ahead where we are with the company,” Martin said of DMC’s electronic systems. “Some of the spend we have to make in other markets, they’ve already made up there.”

In Chicago, Pitts said Vanguard is still working to close its two-facility purchase from Resurrection Health. It hopes to get the deal done by June 30 but it, too, needs to complete processes with the attorney general and the certificate of need program.