Byline: Chrystal Caruthers Daily Herald Business Writer
Suburban hospitals have grown up.
No longer are they the step-children of Chicago's teaching hospitals, relegated to secondary services or less-than-notable doctors. Just the opposite. Today's suburban hospitals have become destinations of choice for many people seeking the best care closer to home.
For example, Provena Mercy Center in Aurora offers the Heart SmarTest, a CAT scan for the heart. Edward Hospital in Naperville is undergoing a $110 million outpatient expansion, and Sherman Hospital in Elgin has joined forces with a competitor to offer the services needed to keep patients in town.
Some say other factors are contributing to the hospital role reversal, including controls over where people go that are exerted by managed-care insurance plans and the insular habits of suburbanites who want to limit their exposure to Chicago.
Whatever the case, suburban hospitals are offering more high-technology tests, renowned doctors and expanded facilities to keep sick residents off the expressways leading into the Loop.
'When patients go downtown for care, they miss more time from work, their family doesn't visit as often and it takes a huge human toll,' said Pam Meyer Davis, president and chief executive officer of Edward Hospital. 'Just parking downtown takes stamina.'
In its new advertising campaign, Edward Hospital addresses such issues head-on. The hospital speaks a language any commuter with limited patience can understand.
'The heart test you've heard about without the blood-pressure-raising commute,' reads one ad. Another: 'The downtown heart test. In-town location.'
The ads appear to be working. Edward saw a 20 percent increase in admissions last year.
The message is clear. Hospitals are businesses. They need patients. To get patients to choose their facilities, suburban hospitals have to counter years of ingrained perceptions that the best doctors, and the best care, only can be found in the city.
Ads can get that message across, but only if the hospital has something to tout. And suburban hospitals have invested millions to make sure they do.
At Edward, for example, Dr. Zev Davis, medical director of cardiovascular surgery, is a pioneer in a new procedure that harvests veins from the legs with minimal scarring. Edward has become the home of a clinical trail of endoscopic vein harvesting, or EVH.
Zev Davis, who was trained at the renowned Mayo Clinic, also oversees a new procedure done in coronary bypass surgery. The heart is lifted out of the chest cavity and still pumps blood throughout the patient during surgery on vessels found behind the heart.
'We do this every day,' he boasts. 'It's beginning to be done in the Chicago area on a small scale.'
Pam Meyer Davis sees these cutting-edge procedures as ammunition in her battle to make Edward the leader in health care.
'Usually patients would have to go to the University of Chicago Hospitals; now they're recognizing some of the most excellent surgeons are in suburban hospitals,' she said.
'If we put the best people in place, we will be able to do everything major hospitals have done in the past,' she said.
Sending patients downtown for care reiterates the thinking that Chicago hospitals are better. 'It diminishes our respect in the community,' said Bill Devoney, chief financial officer at Edward.
Slowly, suburban hospitals are building their credibility, said Tim Wadman, director of diagnostic services at Sherman Hospital in Elgin.
Years ago, patients would have to travel downtown for electrophysiology studies or an irregular heartbeat test. Sherman saw the flood of patients heading south and decided to plug the leak. It now offers the test.
'We consider ourselves a regional heart center, not a community hospital,' he said. 'For cardiac care, people do not have to go downtown anymore. The only thing we don't do is heart transplants.'
In some cases, though, it is more economical to find a partner than to add equipment or personnel.
For matters beyond Sherman's scope, it has partnered with Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago, which provides physicians and expertise when needed. A smart move.
'Rather than send the patients to the hospital, in a way we brought the expertise of the city hospital out to Sherman,' Wadman said.
Oak Brook-based Advocate Health Care also believes in partnerships. The owner of eight hospitals in the city and suburbs, Advocate started partnering with hospitals outside its ranks to beef up its offerings.
'For the independent stand-alone hospital, this is the wave of the future,' said Lloyd H. Dean, executive vice president of Advocate.
Even though Advocate owns the No. 1 ranked cardiology hospital in the area, Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, it still partners with the University of Illinois Hospital. 'There are limitations on capital,' he said. 'This isn't something community hospitals can duplicate overnight.'
Dean envisions this coming-of-age process for suburban institutions as a means to better care overall. He says that it puts pressure on Chicago hospitals to provide a higher level of service not provided at the community level.
'Are the Northwestern University hospitals of the world concerned about community programs and technology? Certainly, but I can't see Delnor-Community Hospital (in Geneva) ever significantly impacting Northwestern.'
That is to say, suburban hospitals can pour money into the latest gadgets and conduct cutting-edge clinical studies, but there are services that always will remain the stronghold of the big teaching hospitals, most of which are in the city. Burn centers, and transplant services are just two examples.
Dean says it wouldn't be practical for community hospitals to compete on that level.
'We couldn't garner the expertise or volume to justify it,' he said.
