Health-care industry provides more than just medical care

Hospital execs, medical school dean tell Rockford Chamber of Commerce members how their field helps the local economy.

By Nate Legue

BusinessRockford.com

The health-care industry employs nearly 10 percent of the local work force, pumps almost $1 billion in wages into the regional economy and promises to be among the biggest job creators in the next several years.

The three top executives at Rockford’s hospitals and the dean of the medical school on Thursday gave about 400 members of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce a primer on health care’s impact on the region.

“Hospital and health-care spending are a mainstay of the economy in their communities and one of the industries that is — somewhat — recession-proof,” said Gary Kaatz, chief executive officer of Rockford Health System.

The health-care industry provides 14,935 jobs and $938.8 million in personal income in the Rockford area, according to the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted in 2004 that one in five new jobs created in the ensuing decade would be in health care.

“When you’re targeting ways in your community to build wealth, obviously health care is a place you look,” said Einar Forsman, Rockford chamber president.

But the local health-care system is not without challenges. About 3,000 people annually seek medical care outside the region, a migration that cost local hospitals about $63 million in charges, according to a 2000 study by the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford.

The expatriate patients head to renowned teaching hospitals like the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, Wis., and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. But Dr. Bill Gorski, chief executive officer of SwedishAmerican Health System, pointed out similarities in quality measures among local hospitals and their outlying competitors, according to Medicare reporting data.

For instance, 87 percent of heart attack patients at Rockford Memorial Hospital were on the operating table getting an angioplasty within 90 minutes of their arrival, while Northwestern Memorial Hospital only moved 56 percent of its patients that quickly.

“It really is a branding thing,” Gorski said. “There isn’t a difference in the quality data, but they have the branding.”

The out-migration represents only about 7 percent of the total admissions in the region, but people who leave the area are often seeking higher-level — and sometimes more profitable — procedures, said Joel Cowen, health systems researcher at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford. And the branding problem causes other effects.

“We don’t have in-migration. There’s virtually none,” Cowen said. “We haven’t built Rockford as a medical center for the surrounding area.”

Some have suggested boosting specialization by dividing various services among local hospitals — deciding which one would provide cancer or trauma care — but that would run afoul of antitrust laws, Gorski said.

Still, the three hospitals can collaborate on some matters, like sharing best safety practices, even as they compete on beating the government’s quality measures.

“We will be more accountable as health-care providers — and that’s good,” said David Schertz, administrator for OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center.

Reach staff writer Nate Legue at 815-987-1346 or nlegue@rrstar.com.