Minnesota's aspiration for acclaim as the "Healthy State" sustained a setback in recent weeks that state leaders should be keen to reverse. Merger talks have halted between Fairview Health System and physicians at the University of Minnesota, setting aside — at least for now — their opportunity to integrate medical teaching, research and clinical practice for the betterment of all three.

That's an opportunity Minnesotans should be loath to lose. As described when merger talks began last fall, a Fairview/University of Minnesota Physicians combination would be rich with promise. For patients, it appeared to offer access to the latest in medical treatment combined with the efficiency and value of better coordinated care.

For the U's Medical School, it meant expanded clinical research and teaching opportunities. That's an improvement from which the whole state would benefit, since the U educates a majority of Minnesota's medical personnel.

It would also make Minnesota a stronger magnet for medical talent and research funding, which by one key measure — National Institutes of Health grants — has been lagging in recent years. The latest NIH grants ranking put the U 35th in the nation, down from top-10 status a generation ago and from 30th in 2014. (By comparison, Mayo Medical School in Rochester ranked 19th in 2015.) A more competitive medical school would boost the U's overall ranking among the nation's research institutions, benefiting the entire enterprise.

The collapse of efforts to create such a desirable combination is disappointing indeed. Leaders of the two institutions insist that the usual reason that institutional mergers falter — a dispute over money — is not the rub in this case. Rather, they said, the two parties could not agree about who would make key decisions in the proposed new health service. In particular, the Fairview governing board balked at the university's insistence that its administrators needed to manage the deployment of physicians who also serve as faculty members and researchers.

That's not an unreasonable position for the university. It's a public institution, accountable to Minnesotans through its legislatively elected Board of Regents for the fulfillment of a mission that includes medical education and research. Those lines of accountability ought not be severed.

Fairview also has a responsibility to the public. It's a nonprofit institution that has enjoyed tax-exempt status throughout its 100-year history because it exists to benefit the community. The benefit that would derive from the creation of an academic health system that could rank among the best in the country would seem to justify a partial surrender of administrative control to university officials.

Fairview and the University of Minnesota seem like logical partners for the creation of a full-service academic health system. In 1997, Fairview took ownership of the financially distressed hospital now known as the University of Minnesota Medical Center. That relationship on the university's Minneapolis campus is unchanged by the collapse of the merger talks. But its continuation stands to complicate any move by either party toward any other possible merger partner — even as the economics of medicine under the Affordable Care Act augur the efficiencies mergers bring.

That's why Fairview's rejection of what the university called its last offer, followed by the regents' withdrawal of a letter of intent to merge, should not be the final chapters in this story. Fairview, the state's second-largest hospital system, has had a series of interim and short-tenure CEOs in the past decade — a situation that has not escaped the notice of the state's attorney general, who is charged by state law with overseeing charitable institutions like Fairview. A search is in progress for a permanent leader to succeed interim CEO David Murphy, who also chairs the board.

Fairview's board should move quickly to install a new CEO and direct him or her to pursue the revival of talks with University of Minnesota Physicians. Other state leaders, including Gov. Mark Dayton and Attorney General Lori Swanson, should employ the tools at their disposal to encourage renewed negotiations. This merger is well worth a second try.