The new Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital on Milwaukee’s east side recently opened to the public. The hospital is the final component of a four-year building project on the 22-acre campus and essentially combines Milwaukee’s old Columbia Hospital, 2025 East Newport Ave., and the St. Mary’s Hospital that already existed in that location.
The principal architect for the $417 million hospital project was Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK). C.G. Schmidt-Barton Malow was the general contractor.
With a new, expanded facility, hospital executives say Columbia St. Mary’s will be able to offer expanded, more efficient care to the community.
“Our patients were the key focus of the planning process,” said Leo Brideau, president and chief executive officer of Columbia St. Mary’s. “We have created a hospital that is different from anything else in the region and fulfills our promise to provide health care that works, health care that is safe, and health care that leaves no one behind. It will make significant contributions to the way health care is delivered both locally and nationally.”
The nine-story hospital at North and Prospect avenues includes 312 new patient beds for a total of 411 on the hospital campus and three specialty institutes, including a Women’s Hospital, the former Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital, the Cancer Center and medical office buildings.
Consolidating the two hospitals reduced the number of beds on Milwaukee’s east side by 44 percent. The previous two facilities had a total of 731 licensed beds. The reduction will help the hospital save nearly $19 million a year in operating costs.
But some wonder what the effect on patient care will be from the bed reduction.
According to Paul Westrick, vice president of mission integration and advocacy at Columbia St. Mary’s, the hospital worked with a nationally renowned medical facility forecasting company to examine the components that factor into a patient’s length of stay, and establish a bed count that allowed the hospital the most flexibility.
“Health Care has changed a lot in the past 50 years,” Westrick said. “Between the two east side campuses we had more than 700 beds. We weren’t using them all when we started this building project either. There has been a continuing decline in length of stay over the past decade or so and we expect that trend to continue.”
Medical advancements, pharmaceuticals, new innovations and minimally invasive surgeries have made it possible to receive treatment and check out more quickly than patients could in the past.
“It not only makes us a much leaner operation,” Westrick said. “Our focus on evidence-based design and the calming components and stress reduction efforts in each room can help our patients heal faster and get back to their everyday lives more quickly.”
Columbia St. Mary’s has a long history of supporting the health and well-being of all members of the community and plans to continue and expand those efforts with the existence of the new facility, Westrick said.
“Our mission statement really focuses on two things,” he said. “Columbia St. Mary’s exists to make a positive difference in the health status and lives of individuals and our community, with special concern for those who are vulnerable,” he said.
According to Westrick, St. Mary’s was the first private hospital in Wisconsin and opened in 1848. Columbia Hospital was opened in 1909. Both facilities have had a strong focus on providing care to everyone who needs it including underinsured, low income and impoverished individuals.
“Our programs and services have always acted as resources available to everyone in the community,” Westrick said. “The new facility doesn’t mean we are changing the target audience we are servicing, it only means we have the ability to provide even greater access to efficient quality care to everyone who needs it.”
The money saved by not paying the additional operating costs of keeping two facilities running also strengthens the facility’s ability to be a low cost, high quality provider to patients of all paying types, Westrick said.
“We provide care for everyone who needs it, and the new facility makes us more sustainable and increases our ability to do that even more effectively.”
Columbia St. Mary’s operates several community outreach clinics and programs in the community, Westrick said.
“St. Ben’s Clinic for the Homeless downtown as been a part of the downtown area for 25 years,” he said. “Last January, we doubled the size of clinics we operate on Mitchell Street and Forest Home which specifically expands and services the oral health needs of uninsured individuals in the surrounding community.”
Columbia St. Mary’s also provides Parish Nursing services to do health screenings at local parishes and food pantries and also works with Milwaukee Public School District to provide more than 3,000 kids check ups and basic dental hygiene, Westrick said.
Aurora Health Care also has a long-standing history of helping the underinsured and impoverished community particularly around its Aurora Sinai Hospital in downtown Milwaukee. Aurora officials declined to comment for this report.
“Our programs and services have always been available to all and will continue to be available to all,” Westrick said. “The new hospital facility will allow us to provide more efficient and expanded quality of care to all who need it and we will continue to expand our community outreach efforts to help those in need before they come to us with even more need at a later stage of illness.”
