Edgerton Hospital and Health Services aims to fill niche

June 21--EDGERTON -- The new CEO of the 18-bed Edgerton hospital knows his facility can't offer everything to everyone.

"You have to look at where the market shift is and where the demands from patients are and address them," CEO Jim Schultz said.

"But absolutely you can't be everything to everybody, and a small hospital has to look at other strategies in order to optimize what you can do."

Nearly four years after opening its doors, Edgerton Hospital and Health Services aims to fill a niche marrying rehabilitative, emergency, specialized and preventative care, all with a personal touch. It can't provide cancer treatment or perform heart transplants, but it can provide quality care at the local level, Schultz said.

In May, Schultz was named the hospital's new CEO. When previous CEO Jim Pernau retired in July 2014, Schultz took over as interim chief while the hospital's board searched for a replacement.

It took them almost a year to decide the best candidate had been in front of them the whole time.

Schultz has 25 years of experience with Edgerton Hospital and Health Services, including more than 10 on the board of trustees. As CEO, Schultz will oversee all strategic, operational and clinical initiatives for the hospital.

He's in charge of a hospital with declining adult admissions but a growing number of patients in swing beds for rehabilitation.

Some things are out of his control, such as the national healthcare trends that helped dictate the design of the new facility. Adult admissions have been down since the hospital opened its doors, though it had a strong first quarter this year, Schultz said.

"What was an inpatient procedure or surgery that required a stay has now become outpatient, so that affects admissions," he said. "We have ER calls that come in, and ER physicians now have to look at the validity of admitting a patient to inpatient in terms of coverage, which is unfortunate, but that's the way it works."

Hospital admissions for any length of stay are declining nationally, Schultz said.

Insurance providers are pushing to decrease lengths of stays at traditional hospitals, Schultz said.

The hospital is known across southern Wisconsin for its rehabilitation programs, but Edgerton Hospital and Health Services doesn't want to put itself into one box. Instead, it aims to provide personal care across a wide spectrum, Schultz said.

The hospital recently hired physicians board-certified in emergency medicine. The hospital's urgent care is open around the clock, a rarity for small hospitals, marketing manager Sunny Bowditch said.

Patients with injuries too grave for the hospital to handle are stabilized and transported by ambulance or helicopter to other Dean/St. Mary's hospitals in Janesville or Madison. Edgerton Hospital and Health Services is partnered with SSM Health Care of Wisconsin, which owns 49 percent of the hospital.

REHABILITATION

Rehabilitation isn't just physical. It's mental, too. A big portion of the hospital's land includes nature-walking trails and a large healing garden patients can walk through.

"We designed this philosophically so that we would marry conventional medicine with health and wellness and healing," Schultz said. "Our healing garden is all about giving our patients that mental life and that spiritual lift so they're in the environment and not secluded in a room."

Bowditch said the hospital in Florida where her father is recovering has no outdoor space for patients.

"We had nowhere to take him," Bowditch said. "We literally had to walk around the parking lot. There were no benches."

The Edgerton hospital was designed so all patients would be on the same level and not have to look down at asphalt or a gravel roof from their rooms.

"We don't have to be concerned about their view anywhere here," Schultz said.

Besides standard inpatient and outpatient rehabilitative care, Edgerton Hospital and Health Services provides a new rehab program: left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, inpatient care.

An LVAD is a mechanical device attached to the heart to help it pump blood while the patient waits for a heart transplant. After the pump is surgically attached, recovery is long and arduous.

UW Hospital, the leading provider for LVAD surgeries, recently offered Edgerton Hospital and Health Services training to care for these unusual patients. The only other Wisconsin hospital to offer such rehabilitation is in Appleton, Schultz said.

So far, Edgerton has cared for two LVAD patients--both to great results, Bowditch said.

Another rehabilitative program the hospital offers is its swing bed program, a Medicare-certified program that allows patients to recover from illness, injury or surgery in a hospital setting.

"Rather than going to a nursing home to receive skilled nursing care and regain strength, they're able to receive care in a hospital," Bowditch wrote in an email.

This allows those patients to access therapies just down the hall from their rooms along with registered nurses, emergency staff, dietitians, an onsite pharmacy and patient and family services, she wrote.

Hospitals with a swing bed program are uncommon, Schultz said. Oftentimes, patients don't understand the program or know that it's an option, Bowditch wrote.

Patients from as far away as Milwaukee go to Edgerton Hospital and Health Services for its swing bed program, Schultz said.

"It really makes me proud that patients from other places from far away choose to come to our facility because they know of the care they'll get," said Brian Stubitsch, emergency department director.

The old hospital included an attached nursing home that was eventually sold to Wisconsin Illinois Senior Housing. The new hospital includes plenty of acreage, but a nursing home isn't planned for the location, Schultz said.

Right now, the hospital leases about 30 acres to a local farmer. One idea is to allow UW-Madison to grow experimental crops on the hospital's land, Schultz said.

EMERGENCY

The hospital last year hired ER physician Stubitsch as director of the emergency department. Before he arrived, hospitalists helped run the emergency department. Non-emergency doctors sometimes don't recognize what's life-threatening like ER physicians can, Stubitsch said.

Now the hospital's emergency department is fully staffed by physicians board-certified in emergency medicine, something not usually done at small, rural hospitals.

"I think that's better care for the patient, and it's more efficient," Stubitsch said. "It has to do with the quality of care we want to give to community around us. They have a lot of options, and we want to give them the best option."

The emergency program is not a response to a 2012 investigation that revealed the hospital was understaffed several days, Bowditch said. The staffing violations came to light after an anonymous complaint that the hospital left its emergency room without staff for almost an hour overnight.

A state report indicated the hospital had since fallen into compliance with its own rules, according to a Gazette article.

"As far as staffing (goes), we always follow our organization's written policies," Bowditch wrote in an email.

Steve Van Dinter, a spokesman for SSM Health Care

Stubitsch has worked at bigger hospitals in Janesville; Rockford, Illinois; Madison; Chicago; and New York City. The difference between large facilities and the personalized care of Edgerton Hospital and Health Services is immediately noticeable, he said.

In Rockford, he never had time to sit down and hear a patient's story from beginning to end without being interrupted. This hospital is different, he said.

"It's more individualized care in the sense that I'm not juggling 12 patients at once, and I'm really able to spend the time with the patients. The patients recognize that," Stubitsch said.

"Patients really appreciate the fact they're able to be seen quickly and taken care of by a person that's just as well trained at the bigger hospital and build that relationship," he said.

The hospital has a new hospitalist program with physicians specialized in hospital medicine.

"With hospitalists on staff, patients do not need to wait for their primary doctor to make rounds, and because the hospitalist has a deep understanding of the patients' needs at all times, they're able to communicate back to the family, primary care provider and specialists, keeping the lines of communication open," Bowditch wrote.

Employing hospitalists allows for shorter hospital stays because there is less waiting time for physicians to clear a patient for discharge, she wrote.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE

On top of its many programs, the hospital offers excellent food and a wealth of free and cheap classes as part of its emphasis on healthy living, Schultz said.

"It's to help balance people's health and wellness, get them involved in good exercise programs and help them with diet and everything," he said.

"The emphasis nationally ... is for you to develop a healthy community," Schultz said.

One of the hospital's goals is to position itself in a way to continue providing quality personal care while responding to future trends. Stubitsch, for one, is excited.

"... Everyone's looking at this challenge in a positive way and really enjoying it," he said. "It's really an exciting time to be a part of this hospital."

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