NOTE: This was the post I was going to write today, but late yesterday, the Illinois Hospital Facility Board denied both Vista and Advocate the ability to build a hospital in Western Lake county. Advocate management is still committed to the process and the freestanding facility they are proposing will be before the Planning and Zoning Commission at the end of the month. I will write more about this shortly. But I can't tell you how disappointed I am by how poorly the State manages this process. Here is a link to the Daily Herald article in todays paper.
This article was in Mondays Daily Herald and I think it goes to show you how nuts the process is for attracting a hospital. The Illinois Hospital Facility board uses Mapquest to determine traffic times and clearly has never driven the 45-60 minutes to the nearest hospital.
If you live in Lindenhurst or Round Lake, how far is it to the nearest hospital?
If you believe the state's findings, there's a hospital a mere 16 minutes from Round Lake and another just 19 minutes from Lindenhurst.
Lake County Board Chairwoman Suzi Schmidt said the findings are outrageous, especially given traffic congestion on Lake County roads.
The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board examined travel times as part of its study of two hospital proposals -- Vista Medical Center's in Lindenhurst and Advocate Health Care's in Round Lake. They admit their method of measurement isn't perfect, but they still use it to help decide if a new health-care facility is needed.
State officials use MapQuest, a Web site that provides driving directions and maps, to determine the distance between facilities and travel time. In the case of the two Lake County proposals on the table, the data shows neither is needed.
"This has been a very difficult thing for a long time," said Jeffrey Mark, executive secretary for the planning board. "The board has used this system for many, many years, but the problem is, travel times is never clearly defined."
The Daily Herald conducted an unscientific study to determine drive-times to the three closest hospitals to Lindenhurst and Round Lake. Daily Herald staffers followed the same MapQuest routes cited by the state, in nonrush hour and rush hour traffic.
Only once did our findings match the state's; the rest of the trips were longer.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the health facilities planning board will vote on the Lindenhurst and Round Lake hospital proposals.
It will take into account several factors, including travel times to other hospitals and a current excess of 209 hospital beds in the area. The meeting is in Springfield.
Mark said 30 minutes is a benchmark the state sees as a reasonable time to drive for an elective hospital procedure.
Vista wants to build a 140-bed hospital near Deep Lake Road and Route 132. According to the state, Condell Medical Center in Libertyville is 19 minutes from that location; Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan is 20 minutes away; and Lake Forest Hospital is 22 minutes away.
Advocate wants to build a 144-bed hospital at Route 120 and Wilson Road. The three closest hospitals to that site, according to the state, are Northern Illinois Medical Center in McHenry at 16 minutes; Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital near Lake Barrington at 16 minutes; and Condell at 19 minutes.
In our survey, all the drive times but one -- a nonrush hour trip from Round Lake to Northern Illinois Medical Center in McHenry -- were three to 22 minutes longer than the MapQuest estimate.
The longest trip was from Lindenhurst to Lake Forest Hospital in nonrush hour traffic. At 44 minutes, it was double the state's 22-minute estimate. The delay was due to ongoing construction on Interstate 94.
Mark said because of issues such as construction and traffic congestion, the board plans to factor in extra time to the MapQuest estimations.
The board decided last month to multiply travel times by 1.25 within the city of Chicago and 1.15 in the suburbs and selected cities such as Rockford, Peoria and Springfield, Mark said.
"We acknowledge this is an issue and travel times vary by day of the week, time of the year and construction," Mark said. "We've tried to address it. And we would also like to be relatively fair."
The change was not made in time for the state reports on the Vista and Advocate proposals.
That means the 22-minute trip from Lindenhurst to Lake Forest Hospital would be increased to just more than 25 minutes under the new guidelines.
That's still almost 19 minutes less than what the Daily Herald trip.
The state's studies were done from the communities where the hospitals would be built. The distance to existing hospitals from neighboring towns farther away, such as Fox Lake and Antioch, were not taken into account.
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