Advocate Aurora sees more growth potential in Kenosha and Racine area

Jun 23, 2020 11:44 am

Pleasant Prairie front exterior — Aurora Health Center in Pleasant Prairie

Last updated Jun 24, 2020 2:09 pm

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Having expanded its footprint with several new health care facilities in the Racine and Kenosha area, Advocate Aurora Health still sees potential for more growth in the state’s far southeastern corner. The Milwaukee and Downers Grove, Illinois-based health system on Monday opened one of two buildings – a 100,000-square-foot medical office building – on its new Pleasant Prairie campus. It expects to open the second building – a 100,000-square-foot ambulatory surgery center – in early November, said Lisa Just, president of the system’s East Corridor patient service area. The new $130 million campus is located in a high-growth area at I-94 and Highway 165/Q, sitting just south of where German gummy bear maker Haribo is planning its first U.S. production facility. Meanwhile, construction is underway for the system’s new $228 million medical center and office building in Mount Pleasant, along with new clinics in Racine and Mount Pleasant. The new facilities position the health system close to Foxconn Technology Group’s campus. Just said the system sees even further growth potential in the Kenosha/Racine county corridor. “As we see the market continue to grow, we intend to continue to meet the needs of that growing market,” she said. “We continue to see growth in Racine and Kenosha.” The new Aurora Health Center Pleasant Prairie campus, located at the northwest corner of Highway 165/Q and 120th Avenue, is intended to ease some of the demand at the Aurora Medical Center in Kenosha. “This site was purposely planned to decompress our Kenosha campus,” she said. “Because of the high growth that the Racine/Kenosha corridor was seeing, we saw we were needing to expand our services on the hospital campus.” Several practices, including orthopedics, urology, pediatrics and general surgery services, are moving from the Kenosha campus to the new Pleasant Prairie facility. The health center also includes an outdoor physical therapy area, a men’s health center and women’s breast imaging center, as well as an onsite pharmacy services, lab and a café. “This will actually allow us to grow at the Pleasant Prairie (campus) and grow further at the Kenosha campus as well,” she said. The Pleasant Prairie campus was originally set to open on June 8, but the project timeline was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time that health systems began halting non-emergency services and construction projects in mid-March, the construction team was on schedule and prepared to hand over the facility to Advocate Aurora later that month. “We were really close to completing construction of the building and then in April and May having time for equipping the building, having IT and security systems (installed) and staff training in that time,” Just said. “...With COVID, we then put everything on hold and focused on caring for our COVID-19 patients at the Aurora Medical campus in Kenosha.” That time allowed the system to determine what safety measures it would put in place in the new facility. Just said the new building is “spacious and conducive to social distancing.” Advocate Aurora plans to equip the health center with a self-rooming check-in model, which would allow patients to bypass the waiting room and meet their physician in their assigned room, but implementation of the system is delayed until August. “The company (that Advocate Aurora is partnering with) had a travel ban and couldn’t come on site to implement with us as we reactivated planning,” Just said. In the meantime, the facility is using Advocate Aurora’s LiveWell app to have patients check in virtually. It’s also screening visitors for COVID-19, requiring masks for all visitors, and staggering appointment times. While Advocate Aurora – like health systems across the state – has shifted as many appointments as possible to virtual visits, Just said the system’s Wisconsin facilities are seeing patients return for routine and non-emergency care. “Most of our ambulatory sites are at over 75-80% to pre-COVID-19 levels,” she said.

Advocate Aurora sees more growth potential in Kenosha and Racine area

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