Mercy revising plan for Illinois hospital
Photo 
Richard Gruber
JANESVILLE — Mercy Health System is taking another run at building a hospital in Crystal Lake, Ill., this time hoping to win the support of a state board with a much smaller proposal.
In June, the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board rejected Mercy’s plans for a $200 million, 128-bed hospital and clinic in Crystal Lake.
In an 8-1 vote to deny the Janesville-based Mercy a “certificate of need,” board members said they weren’t convinced the area needed more hospital beds.
Mercy is now proposing a $115 million, 70-bed hospital and multi-specialty clinic on a 16-acre parcel it has owned for year. It is the organization’s third plan for a hospital in the McHenry County community.
In 2003, Mercy announced plans for an $81 million hospital and clinic at the site. The proposal moved forward before being derailed when the board overseeing its approval became embroiled in a kickback scandal involving the Mercy project but not Mercy officials.
Mercy’s new plan calls for 56 new medical/surgical beds, 10 obstetrics beds and four intensive care unit beds. The building also would be about 90,000 square feet smaller and cost about $85 million less.
Mercy officials have said the need for a hospital in Crystal Lake is critical because that part of the county is growing rapidly. Transportation infrastructure hasn’t kept up with population growth, which makes access to existing emergency medical centers in the area difficult, they said.
Rich Gruber, Mercy’s vice president of community advocacy, said the new project would be much more cost effective and efficient, which he said should match up well with the board’s goal of balancing supply, demand and consumer costs in the healthcare industry.
“Because the way healthcare is practiced today has changed so much, we can do so much more in a smaller hospital than we could years ago,” Gruber said. “The vast majority of new hospitals being built in this country are 100 beds or less.”
On the same day in June that the state board gave Mercy its “intent to deny” notice, it did the same to Centegra Health System, which sought to build a $233 million, 128-bed hospital in Huntley, less than 10 miles from Mercy’s Crystal Lake site.
The board has scheduled a public hearing on Mercy’s revised plan for Friday, Oct. 7, at Crystal Lake City Hall.
While the project will get another public hearing, its “intent to deny” status remains unchanged, Courtney Avery, the board’s administrator, told the Northwest Herald newspaper.
The review board is tentatively scheduled to consider the competing plans from Mercy and Centegra—which Gruber believes hasn’t changed—in November.
Sep 3, 2011 at 9:11 a.m.
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I hope they do a better job of providing better health care in Illinois then they do in Wisconsin.
Sep 2, 2011 at 3:21 p.m.
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I think it is actually going to be a modular home that they are building somewhere else then they will bring in when its finished. That's about the only way they could do it with the weather & putting such a short deadline on the project.
Sep 2, 2011 at 7:51 a.m.
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It's not that hard to put up a basic steel-frame box, and this isn't going to be a full-service hospital -- it's a clinic with an ED. I'm sure they have early completion incentives in their construction contracts.
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Of course, the interesting contrast here is mentioning all that on this story, which is about the Illinois facility they want that they can't build because the state has a siting board. It sounds like people want that authority here, from the way some are complaining (about both Mercy North and Dean-St. Mary's). But of course the board in Illinois turned out to be a magnet for corruption, as Mercy found out to their dismay. I don't know which outcome is better. I do know that it's pretty crazy we have such a privatized system of health care in this country, and this is clearly NOT a way in which privatization is more efficient. The US pays more in health care per person than any other country, and this is a big part of the reason why.
Sep 1, 2011 at 10:17 p.m.
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So does anybody on here think that it's almost going to be impossible for Mercy to have it's new North Hospital up and running by the December deadline that Mr. Javon Bea has set for completion? I drove past there this afternoon and from the looks of things, they workers are still moving earth around at new facility at Deerfield Drive, no structure is going up yet and if it took St. Mary's this long to complete, it has to make one wonder if there are some short cuts being made? Mind you I am not saying that there is anything being done illegally with it, I just have to wonder how they're going to complete a new hospital in just under 4 months, it's a reasonable question I believe. I know that Mercy has claimed that this new facility isn't going up in response to Dean St. Mary's coming to town, yet a deadline of late December being given for it to be up and running, which would make it opening just days before St. Mary's opens it doors, for a level of service I believe Janesville not only deserves, but needs.
So I guess I am just asking if anyone on here may have answers as to how Mercy is going to build a new hospital on Janesville's north side and have it up and running in just under 4 months? I know I would be second guessing having to go to a hospital that was thrown together.
Best of luck to both facilities, Janesville welcomes more jobs coming to town because God knows we can use them.
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