Between 2001-2014 I had the honor and privilege of working for Vanguard Health Systems, at the time, the owners of MacNeal, Weiss, Westlake and West Suburban Hospitals.
Even back then, the headwinds facing all four hospitals were challenging. Declining reimbursements, changing demographics of illnesses, and disenchanted medical staffs all contributed to those challenges. The facilities were dilapidated and in desperate need of upgrades. And behind that inability to fund improvements was the financing dilemmas that health care faces: caps on Medicare reimbursements and wildly different commercial reimbursement rates.
Each of those hospitals had their unique challenges: MacNeal was landlocked; Westlake served a Medicaid population and had a medical staff that was one of the last to require board certification to be on its staff; Weiss Hospital suffered from Medicaid (and now Medicare) reimbursement issues and has had difficulty in attracting and maintaining primary care physicians.
West Suburban Hospital had been through numerous owners (primarily nonprofit entities) before the Vanguard acquisition and each of the owners promised to fix it. And now, their Family Medicine Residency and its nationally renowned OB training program is gone. Each of the subsequent owners thought they could do what no one else could — restore West Sub to operating profitability, without deeply investing in its infrastructure, personnel and physicians.
At the other end of Oak Park sits Oak Park Hospital. As a longtime Oak Park resident, I watched Oak Park Hospital rise from at third tier community hospital to one that offers world-class care, connected to a world-class academic medical center. Rush had the foresight to invest wisely in services, physicians, and facility upgrades, culminating with the opening of the new professional services building at North and Harlem avenues.
The contrast between our two hospitals couldn’t be more obvious as are the choices — go big with West Sub and reinvest in an aging institution, or watch it die a slow death as did Westlake and now Weiss is doing.
Only through reinvestment will physicians and patients be re-attracted to our jewel. The question is who will do the reinvestment?
Gary Wainer
Oak Park