Aurora responds to OMH plans

Waukesha Freeman, May 10, 2006

By ERIK BROOKS
Freeman Staff

OCONOMOWOC After a 30-minute presentation Tuesday of plans for a major renovation and expansion project of their facility, workers at Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital were asked for questions on the multimillion dollar proposal.

A voice came from the back of the room.

We finally have an answer to Aurora, the woman said, and the crowd applauded.

But hospital officials continued to stress they made that decision to progress with the $36.7 million in upgrades and another $2 million to $4 million on an outpatient complex near Interstate 94 and Highway 67 independent of Aurora Health Cares plans for Pabst Farms.

An Aurora official suspects otherwise.

Aurora Kettle Moraine Region Vice President Sue Ela contended in an interview Tuesday that the projects only further show the need for her systems $85 million hospital planned less than three miles from OMH and just blocks from the planned Oconomowoc Physician Center.

She said the projects coupled with the ProHealth Care systems stiff resistance to the Aurora plans represent an irony not lost on anyone that we talked to.

It certainly reinforces the fact that Waukesha County is growing and needs additional health care services, Ela said. We really think it reinforces the value of competition in health care. We strongly believe and we have seen this over and over again in all of the markets that we serve that competition forces everyone to be better.

Plans Aurora had to build hospitals in both Oconomowoc and the town of Summit in the past five years remain tied up in court.

Meanwhile, ProHealth was a vocal critic of both plans before formally announcing its two projects to about 100 employees Tuesday morning at OMH.

The proposal includes a 34-month series of upgrades to the hospital, including construction of new and expanded patient rooms, an emergency department, an intensive care unit and a main lobby.

Also, employees were told of Pro-Healths plans to jointly own a new $19 million outpatient development to include a three-story medical office building, relocated Musculoskeletal Institute and imaging services all linked with the existing ProHealth clinic at 1185 Corporate Center Drive in Oconomowoc.

OMH President and CEO John Robertstad called the Oconomowoc Physician Center an extension of our hospital.

And he reiterated that neither it, nor the OMH project, had anything to do with Aurora.

This is about our future, he said. (Aurora President) Ed Howe never calls me to ask my advice on any of his decisions. To be honest, I didnt call him.

OMH Board Chairwoman Janet Swandby agreed, saying the decision to approve both projects was made with patients in mind, not Aurora.

She pointed to a 1999 master facilities plan that called for the OMH upgrades.

Still, Swandby added: Aurora is always there for us. Over the past number of years, we have always had Aurora on our radar screen.

Dr. Timothy Schultz an orthopedic surgeon with Orthopedic Associates of Wisconsin, a partner in the Musculoskeletal Institute who is considering investing in the new outpatient development said Aurora was at least some of the impetus for the two projects.

Oconomowoc has been a state-of-the-art hospital all along. In the battle with Aurora, it has been portrayed by the Aurora advertising as being something less than that, he said. If everybody wants to keep up with the Joneses, its going to take capital investment along the way.

Added Schultz: When these types of battles are engaged in, its going to increase the cost of medical care. Anybody who denies that fact is just looking the other way.

Robertstad countered by saying the new construction, like other recent upgrades to OMH and its sister hospital, Waukesha Memorial, will likely not have a major impact on already high health care costs in the region.

Ela said that is a point Aurora is making with its new hospital plans as well an argument ProHealth continues to take issue with, claiming that the Aurora hospital would lead to an unnecessary duplication of services and unneeded new hospital beds.

The OMH upgrades add up 11 beds to the 79-bed facility, as OMH officials project demand for only one to two new hospital beds per year in the area.

Aurora is planning an 88-bed hospital.

We are talking about bringing services to western Waukesha County that do not exist, Ela said. Our commitment to bring the full array of services is firm, constant.