Mayo Clinic has added South County Health, a small hospital in Wakefield, R.I., to its national care network, giving the Minnesota-based medical giant a new outpost on the doorstep of Boston’s established hospital systems.

The arrangement, announced this week, puts Mayo’s name and specialists within reach of a 100-bed community hospital that has lost money on operations in each of the last three fiscal years, including $7.2 million on $237 million in revenue in fiscal 2025, according to a bond offering document dated Sept. 22 and obtained by The Boston Globe.

Under the deal, South County physicians gain direct access to Mayo specialists for consultations on patient care. In return, the Mayo Clinic Care Network collects a fee, which was not disclosed. “We believe there is another path,” Aaron Robinson, South County’s chief executive, said in a statement, arguing that hospitals have typically had to surrender their independence to gain the scale and expertise to compete.

Caroline Auger, a Mayo spokeswoman, said the relationship does not amount to a targeted expansion of Mayo’s physical presence in New England. But it fits a broader growth strategy: Mayo has built ties with independent hospitals, offering clinical expertise, technology and supply chain muscle to community institutions that cannot easily survive alone.

Executives at Boston’s major hospital systems “should be concerned,” said J.B. Silvers, a health care finance professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a former faculty member at Harvard. “They may like to say competition’s good, but they don’t really want competition, especially when it’s right in their backyard,” Mr. Silvers said. “That’s why they’ve all expanded themselves.”

Errol Norwitz, a former chief executive of Newton-Wellesley Hospital who now runs a health and innovation center at Babson College in Wellesley, put it more bluntly. Health care is a “$5.4 trillion pie, and systems want a bigger slice,” he said. He called the deal “quite strategic, but also a little opportunistic,” noting that Mayo can chase lucrative services like orthopedics and cardiology. “They’re cherry-picking the best opportunities, as good businesses do.”

South County’s troubles run deeper than branding. The hospital’s share of adult inpatient discharges has fallen while Medicare’s share of its patient revenue has risen over the last two years, and management blamed an “unfavorable change in payor mix” for weaker results in the bond document. The filing, tied to $73 million in financing for energy plant upgrades, debt repayment and a costly electronic records system, also said the hospital may need “access to capital” from an unidentified partner.

Three Rhode Island health care executives, government officials and others familiar with South County’s business dealings told the Globe the hospital has also held talks with HumanityCorp, a Virginia-based private equity firm. HumanityCorp and Mayo jointly launched Inspirity Health Partners in 2024 to work with independent hospitals on supplies and finances.

Ms. Auger said HumanityCorp is not part of the care network deal. Representatives of HumanityCorp and Inspirity did not respond to the Globe’s questions, and Matt Moeller, a South County spokesman, declined to discuss the firm. “We are only commenting on our clinical collaboration,” Mr. Moeller said.

Mayo’s name has carried little weight in the region until now. It ran a laboratory in Andover for several years before closing it in 2016, saying the site was too far from a Mayo practice. Its care network has members worldwide, but South County is only the second in New England, after Middlesex Hospital in Connecticut, which joined in 2015.

Dr. Norwitz said he welcomed bigger players stirring up health care in New England, though he cautioned that Mayo could find Rhode Island hard going, with its low reimbursement rates. “What works in Cleveland, Chicago, or Miami doesn’t often work in Rhode Island,” he said. “It’s a smaller captive population. And, frankly, there’s two large health care systems that are already struggling. Rhode Island, for health care, is tough.”