Ascension Wisconsin investing in SE Wisconsin to meet community’s needs, including $10 million for centralized behavioral health hub

Ascension Wisconsin is making significant investments and aligning services in Southeast Wisconsin in an effort to ensure continued access to compassionate, high-quality care for years to come.

The strategy focuses on providing broad access to lower acuity interventions and medical management services, such as primary care, while concentrating higher acuity, specialized care at centralized locations in Southeast Wisconsin to optimize patient care and necessary resources, including equipment and clinicians.

A highlight of this strategy includes a $10 million investment at Ascension St. Francis Hospital with the goal of expanding the site's inpatient behavioral health center up to 60 inpatient beds.

"All decisions about how we deliver care are led by what's best for our patients and communities," said Daniel Jackson, ministry market CEO, Ascension Wisconsin and senior vice president, Ascension. "Residents across the communities we serve have consistently told us that increased access to behavioral health services is a top priority. We are configuring our services to answer that call, while also ensuring that we are best positioned to achieve long-term sustainability and continue to deliver high-quality care across the market well into the future."

The comprehensive behavioral health center to be developed at St. Francis Hospital will build upon the already strong behavioral health program at that site and will provide care access across the continuum-from outpatient, to partial hospitalization, to complete inpatient care for adolescents and adults-with the goal of centralizing all Ascension's SE Wisconsin inpatient behavioral health care at the site with up to 60 available inpatient beds. Addiction treatment services offering integrated collaborative care with same-day visits and recovery coaches will also be available. St. Francis Hospital will also continue to operate its emergency room, operating rooms, and wide range of inpatient and outpatient health services. Outpatient behavioral health services at Ascension Wisconsin hospitals will remain as they are today - local and close to home.

Ascension Wisconsin currently operates more 24/7 cardiac catheterization (cath) labs than any other healthcare system in SE Wisconsin. Cardiac services will be expanded at Franklin Hospital to include 24/7 cath lab availability to service southern Milwaukee County and northern Racine County, a rapidly growing geography devoid of such services today. In Southeast Wisconsin, 24/7 cath lab services will also remain available at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital - Milwaukee Campus, Elmbrook Hospital in Brookfield, and All Saints Hospital in Racine. These sites will serve all of Ascension's Southeast Wisconsin hospitals and surrounding communities via an integrated STEMI and cath lab network. This strategy ensures highly experienced care teams can perform round-the-clock, minimally invasive heart procedures.

A major investment at St. Joseph Hospital includes the addition of a da Vinci robot - the first in Milwaukee's Northside community - providing minimally invasive surgery options to area residents not previously available. Ascension Wisconsin continues to invest in labor and delivery and postpartum health services at St. Joseph Hospital, offering a Level III NICU, maternal-fetal medicine and neonatal specialty care, as well as the first and one of the only OB-specific emergency departments in Milwaukee offering 24/7 care. To increase community access, St. Joseph Hospital also provides free childcare for visiting parents, an initiative that has received national attention for eliminating barriers to care. St. Joseph Hospital is also the hub of Ascension Wisconsin's growing medical education program, providing comprehensive graduate medical education and additional future workforce development programs with training at most of Ascension's Milwaukee hospitals to help fill the healthcare employment pipeline.

St. Joseph Hospital, Columbia St. Mary's Hospital - Milwaukee, and All Saints Hospital in Racine will provide all of Ascension Wisconsin's labor and delivery services for the system's Southeast Wisconsin footprint, spanning Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Waukesha and Racine Counties. All three sites offer a level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and exceptional maternal-fetal medicine and neonatal specialty care and resources. Columbia St. Mary's - Milwaukee Campus and St. Joseph Hospital each feature the only OB-specific emergency departments in the City of Milwaukee.

Columbia St. Mary's Hospital - Milwaukee will continue to provide Ascension Wisconsin's most complex care in its Southeast Wisconsin footprint, including 24/7 comprehensive stroke care, cardiac surgery, surgical oncology, and the region's only burn center - certified by the American Burn Association. Investments of more than $16 million have created dedicated neuro and cardiac intensive care units, a 24/7 OB-specific emergency department, and expanded access within the Women's Medical Center - recently recognized by Newsweek as one of America's Best Maternity Hospitals.

All Saints Hospital remains the only hospital in the City of Racine and performs nearly 5,000 surgeries and 1,200 births annually, servicing the greater Racine- and Kenosha-area communities. Continually innovating, All Saints offers orthopedic walk-in urgent care, and is recognized by the American Heart Association as an innovator by enhancing the quality of heart failure care through data-driven learning.

Suburban hospital locations, such as Elmbrook Hospital in Brookfield, and Columbia St. Mary's Hospital - Ozaukee in Mequon will continue to provide high-quality care influenced by community need. This includes an American College of Emergency Physicians Level III geriatric accredited emergency department and recent $3 million investment in a multidisciplinary neuroscience program at Elmbrook. Both Elmbrook and Columbia St. Mary's - Ozaukee offer non-invasive and robotic surgical services, robust gynecological, prenatal, postnatal and urology services, and both maintain comprehensive Bariatric and Weight Management programs accredited by American College of Surgeons Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Quality Improvement Program.

Ascension Wisconsin will also continue to serve communities through partnerships and joint ventures, including small-scale, joint-venture hospitals in Greenfield and Menomonee Falls.

"The three factors at the forefront of our investment decisions and ongoing service offerings are quality, viability and sustainability," Jackson said. "Regionalizing services to align with patient needs and ensuring the right mix of interventional, disease management and preventive care services will help ensure our infrastructure and service investments enable us to sustainably deliver safe, excellent care to our patients, and appropriately resource our care teams."

Amid a national shortage of healthcare workers, in addition to financial and regulatory headwinds, Jackson says it is both necessary and responsible to modernize Ascension Wisconsin's approach to healthcare delivery, aligning with the needs of communities being served.

"By prioritizing the safety and well-being of our patients and ensuring we can consistently and sustainably offer our services and programs at the highest level possible, we can deliver on our shared vision of providing exceptional care to the people of Wisconsin for generations to come," Jackson said.