A press release from Northwestern Medicine:
Crystal Lake-based health system would join Northwestern Medicine
Centegra’s McHenry Hospital
“Centegra Health System shares a similar vision as Northwestern Medicine with a commitment to providing patients with high-quality, compassionate care,” said Dean M. Harrison, President and Chief Executive Officer, Northwestern Memorial HealthCare. “As a member of Northwestern Medicine, Centegra Health System would be part of an integrated academic health system that is transforming the future of health care and becoming one of the nation’s premier destinations for patient care.”
The Huntley Centegra Hospital nears completion.
Centegra Health System includes hospitals in McHenry and Woodstock, Immediate and Physician Care Centers, Centegra Sage Cancer Center, Centegra Health Bridge Fitness Centers and Centegra Hospital-Huntley, which will open in August 2016. The health system includes 4,000 employees and more than 200 physicians and allied health professionals who are employed by Centegra Physician Care.
“This is the right time to join an organization that values the ways we provide advanced medical care in our community,” said Michael S. Eesley, Chief Executive Officer, Centegra Health System. “Northwestern Medicine would help us give patients the perfect combination of academic medicine and community-based care.”
Centegra built a big new hospital in Huntley in order to stave off competition from Mercy Hospital.
But building more beds doesn’t increase demand for medical services.
In fact, with a falling population, demand is decreasing.
Currently Centegra has 341 beds licensed.
It’s staffing 264, down from 308 in 2013.
Expect more cuts at the Woodstock hospital.
In FY2011, Centegra had 63,000 acute patient days.
In calendar 2015, they had 48,400, down 23% in four years.
And this is BEFORE they open their new hospital.
Expect acute patient days to go up modestly but system-wide occupancy to drop sharply from the current 65% of staffed beds.
Centegra’s margins, cash ratios and debt service coverage — common metrics for assessing hospital creditworthiness — are all weak and about to get weaker when they have to staff the Huntley facility.
Of course they’re seeking to be acquired by a stronger hospital.
The same thing happened in Elgin.
Sherman built that big, fancy, expensive new hospital, raising their costs.
But demand didn’t go up simply because they built a new hospital.
A year later they were desperately seeking a white knight to buy them.
We’re probably looking at the end of an independent hospital in McHenry County.
….and who cares? Centegra is horrible and Northwestern is as good as it gets.
I have horror stories over care at Centegra.
My brother was over-hydrated too quickly and died from the resulting brain swelling.
We asked for an autopsy as he was in his early 40’s they never did it and we found out after he was cremated.
Later learned this is a “rookie” mistake.
My in law sent home to hospice care for kidney failure given weeks to live, recovered from her kidney ailment, still a cancer patient but in better health than when she left the hospital.
This could be a good thing if it brings better standards of care
I can only hope that Northwestern would require Centegra to meet their quality standards.
They currently do not even come close.
Northwestern has done the same with other hospital systems.
I’m concerned this will pull down the quality of Northwestern, which I rely on, heavily, for top notch care.
Well I wonder if this will bring down the price of Kleenex from $4 to .04 cents?
The Mrs. I am so sorry for your loss.
This once again, only proves to me that my Daddy was right all along when he used to say,
God gave us all DNA that is able to heal your body while you sleep.
People need to take advantage of that and stop relying on the scams known as medicine.
“The Mrs” hope you filed a civil law suit.