Aurora unveils Summit hospital plans

The Daily Reporter, January 3, 2007

By Joe Grundle

After Aurora Health Care was cleared to build a hospital in the town of Summit, the company had to decide what the facility would look like.

On Wednesday, Aurora unveiled plans for its $189 million Aurora Medical Center that includes a 539,000-square-foot hospital and 180,000-square-foot office building.

Summits Plan Commission and Town Board will review the plans in the coming weeks.

We certainly expect them to be thorough in their review, but we are hopeful they are pleased with the design we proposed, said Jeff Squire, spokesman for Aurora.

The proposed hospital will consist of 110 private patient rooms -- each with a full bathroom and amenities such as home-like furnishings, individual temperature controls, warm colors and natural wood trim -- and offer the latest equipment for diagnosis and treatment, all-digital diagnostics and a comprehensive system for electronic health records.
It will feature soft, indirect lighting, plenty of windows for natural light, family lounges, resource libraries, nurse stations designed to encourage interaction between patients and caregivers, and an easy-to-navigate floor plan that promotes privacy by separating patient hallways from those used by the public.

A paved walk will ring the 53-acre campus that will feature extensive landscaping and a healing garden. Albert Kahn Associates Inc. of Detroit designed the medical center.

We are working throughout our organization to make sure that we design care around the needs of our patients, Donald Nestor, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Aurora Health Care, said in a statement. You will see this emphasis reflected in every aspect of this new hospital.

The office building will house the physicians and staff of Aurora Wilkinson Medical Clinic in Oconomowoc, which has outgrown its space at 915 Summit Ave.

Our Wilkinson physicians provide care for more than 40,000 patients, said Dr. David Ulery, an Oconomowoc pediatrician and president of Aurora Wilkinson Medical. With this beautiful new medical center, we will be able to do so much more for our patients, coordinating their care across a broad spectrum of services.

Services now available at the Aurora Wilkinson Womens Center and the soon-to-be neighboring Vince Lombardi Cancer Clinic in Oconomowoc also will move to the new medical center when it opens. Squire said Aurora had not yet determined what it will do with the old Wilkinson properties after the move.

All in all, the new medical center is expected to employ about 950 full- and part-time employees.

The town of Summit always supported Aurora building a medical center at the southeast corner of Interstate 94 and Highway 67, but that effort was shot down by Waukesha County in April 2005.

The city of Oconomowoc first refused to rezone a site for Aurora in 2001, but after the courts ruled in May that the city acted illegally, the city and town collaborated to use extraterritorial zoning to bypass the countys decision at the Summit site and approve the center.

Aurora hopes to start construction of the center in spring and open in summer 2009.