By Chelsey Levingston ,
Staff Writer
9:26 PM Monday, September 5, 2011
Billions of dollars spent to build six new hospitals and various other medical facilities between Dayton and Cincinnati in the past five years has rapidly changed the region.
The large investment has brought increased tax revenues, better health services closer to every community, increased efficiency and for the first time made health care and social services the largest job industry in Butler, Warren, and Hamilton counties.
And health experts said they don?t expect the investment in health care to stop.
Half of the new hospitals ? Atrium Medical Center in Middletown, West Chester Hospital and Cincinnati Children?s Liberty Campus ? were built in Butler and Warren counties, investing millions locally and increasing access to care.
The others include Mercy Hospital West, which Mercy Health Partners of Cincinnati started construction of this year in Green Twp. in Hamilton County. Kettering Health Network of Dayton expects to finish next year The Indu and Raj Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek. And Premier Health Partners of Dayton finished construction in 2006 of a second campus of Miami Valley Hospital, now Miami Valley Hospital South.
Also in the past five years, several hospitals added speciality facilities, bought their first surgical robots, replaced equipment and implemented electronic medical records so one day they can share their patients? medical information with each other and primary doctors.
Altogether, the six hospitals in Butler and Warren counties spent more than $635 million from 2006 to the end of last year on capital investment.
That money built new hospitals, upgraded technology, implemented electronic medical records and bought land for future investment, according to numbers provided by the hospitals.
Capital investment, which includes everything spent on land, buildings and equipment, including laptops and beds, increases productivity by giving a greater capacity to deliver health care, increasing efficiency and improving quality, said Steve Wyatt, Miami University chair of finance.
Atrium Medical, West Chester, Cincinnati Children?s Liberty, Mercy Hospital Fairfield, Fort Hamilton Hospital and McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford have a total nearly 5,900 employees and saw patients approximately 853,711 times last year.
Atrium Medical Center has invested the most money, $263 million, in the past five years in Butler and Warren Counties. McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital of Oxford had the smallest capital investment of approximately $18 million.
Millions more were also spent on hospitals in Hamilton and Montgomery counties. Mercy Health Partners, for example, said it invested from 2006 through last year $112.2 million on its hospitals in Hamilton County, according to spokesman Pete Gemmer. Mercy Health is the same parent system of Mercy Hospital Fairfield. Kettering Health spent $229.4 million just in 2010 on capital on its hospitals in Montgomery, Warren and Butler counties, including its hospital Fort Hamilton, according to spokeswoman Elizabeth Long.
Spending won?t slow down
With more health care reform looming in the not too distant future, there?s no indication spending will slow down. Colleen O?Toole, president of Greater Cincinnati Health Council, said the increasing emphasis on preventive care in federal health care reform will likely mean more of a focus on outpatient and physician services in the coming years. Health care reform will also increase the number of individuals who will have access to health care coverage, according to O?Toole.
As of March of this year, Butler and Warren county hospitals owned more than 200 acres of undeveloped land for future development. Most recently, Kettering Health Network announced in March it purchased 135 acres for development in Fairfield Twp. for an undisclosed price.
Recently, speculation in the medical community is that a health system will buy Butler County Medical Center in Hamilton.
If a new health system buys Butler County Medical Center, it means seven health systems have laid major stakes in Butler County. UC Health is now the former Health Alliance and opened West Chester Hospital; Kettering Health acquired Fort Hamilton from the Health Alliance; and Cincinnati Children?s entered the market with its Liberty Campus. Other health systems include Atrium?s parent Premier Health, Mercy Health and McCullough-Hyde.
TriHealth of Cincinnati also opened in 2006 Bethesda Medical Center ? Arrow Springs in Lebanon in Warren County, which has an emergency department and outpatient services.
O?Toole said where construction capital is invested in the future is part of a changing era in how services are delivered.
?With advancing technology, it?s likely that more and more services will be provided in a safe, convenient manner that might not always require an overnight stay.?Hospitals now think of themselves as providing or coordinating services over a whole continuum of a patient?s care, which could include a whole range of inpatient, outpatient, preventive and post-discharge services,? according to O?Toole.?
A quality hospital goes hand-in-hand with other services in cities such as the quality of school districts and police and fire services, which can matter to someone new considering the community, said Paul Renwick, president of Middletown Board of Realtors.
?I think having a full-service, brand-new hospital right in your backyard, it?s a huge plus to the community,? Renwick said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
Article source: http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/middletown-news/local-hospitals-invested-billions-1246821.html
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Source: http://medicaltips.biz/2011/09/06/local-hospitals-invested-billions/
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