Hospital Sisters Health System

Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden and his Democratic opponent, Rebecca Cook, participated in a candidate forum on Tuesday with just two weeks to go until the midterm election.

The forum, moderated by WEAU, took place at Chippewa Valley Technical College and covered issues like tariffs, the war in Iran, and the healthcare crisis the Chippewa Valley has struggled with since the HSHS closures.

Speaking on the healthcare crisis, Congressman Van Orden highlighted his efforts to secure funding for BadgerCare through the Working Families Tax Cut and Jobs Act.

As far as here in rural Wisconsin, in the Working Families Tax Cut Jobs Act, I was able to secure an additional $1 billion for BadgerCare in the state of Wisconsin, a billion dollars a year for BadgerCare in the state of Wisconsin.

I'm Michelle Ackles.

Four HSHS clinics in the Springfield area will be closing and moving services to other places.

Family clinics in Sherman, Rochester, and Chatham will be relocated to the hospital's network's multi-specialty care building on Old Jacksonville Road.

A diabetes and endocrinology clinic in Springfield will move to multi-specialty clinic inside HSHS St. John's Hospital.

A spokesperson says staff members at these clinics will continue seeing patients in the new locations.

Patient care plans will continue with their providers and, quote, there will not be any discontinuation of care.

The spokesperson says the move is meant to make care easier to access and coordinate.

HSHS did not provide a timeline for when these clinics would be closing.

Sure, there are.

And then, uh, HSHS, uh, tomorrow, uh, they're holding their pet blessing, uh, Thursday, October eighth, in the honor of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who was the patron saint of animals.

The event begins at five thirty in the Cancer Care Healing Garden at HSHS St. Mary's Hospital, so you can bring your cats, your dogs, your pets out there to get officially blessed.

That's very cool too.

Nice round up there.

This is Laura Dyrda with the Becker's Health Care Podcast.

I'm thrilled today to be joined by Kathy Donovan, senior vice president and chief operating officer at Hospital Sisters Health System.

Kathy, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Thank you so much, Laura.

Um, I've been in nursing leadership roles and operational roles.

I've worked at for-profit hospitals and health systems and not-for-profit.

Um, and finally landed here about four years ago at Hospital Sisters Health System, which is a Catholic, non-for-profit system.

Um, we sit between two states, Illinois and Wisconsin, and our service area covers about 1,000 miles.

... goes directly to our cause.

It goes directly to Simmons, um, HSHS, uh, St. John's Children's Cancer, uh, Care Unit, um, or-

Indiana

...

UnityPoint Health.

You know, if you see a Hawkeye football game, you kinda know.

Uh, the Pediatric Cancer Unit, HSHS St. John's Children's Hospital, Simmons Cancer, too.

We talk about them a lot.

You know, we're a for-profit organization and that's something new to me.

I'm used to a not-for-profit and not that, you know, I work for the sisters, HSHS, and they used to say no margin, no commission.

So everybody wants to make money, but a for-profit, it's a different mentality and a different pressure that I'm not used to.

And when I came here, there were for a variety of different reasons that are too complex to get into.

You know, one of the questions that they have for me here is, you know, what were the biggest challenges that I faced today? in my time here.

And certainly right off the top, you have to go with COVID and then the closure of HSHS and Prevea.

You know, nobody can prepare for those types of things.

You know, COVID hit everybody across the world, obviously, but it changed on a dime.

It's all the same groups.

And so we need to really come together and stay focused.

I would say probably from the business sector, one of the biggest things that I'm anxious to sit back and watch unfold is what's going up with the old HSHS Hospital Sacred Heart called the 900 District.

If you're not aware, one of the components of that is a gentleman called Dr. Tim Nelson.