ThedaCare will keep Appleton, Neenah hospitals
Health company abandons prospect of consolidation
NEENAH - Following 18 months of study, ThedaCare has decided against consolidating its hospitals in Appleton and Neenah into a central property, it was announced Wednesday.
Imran Andrabi, ThedaCare President and CEO, and Terry Timm, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said the board came to its unanimous decision Tuesday.
The board examined community demographics, where patients reside, public transportation, economics and the best way to deliver quality care, Timm said.
“We want to keep our care as close to our community and to the people we serve as possible, and moving to a central service will always leave somebody farther from the doctor than they would like to be,” Timm said. “The economics look favorable this way. The quality looks favorable, and we are pretty certain that reinvesting in the current hospitals, as well as investing in increasing access across our nine-county access region is better for the community than moving from two to one.”
Neenah Mayor Dean Kaufert was relieved at the news.
“I think they should take me right to the cardiac unit, the way I feel right now,” he said. “I’m very excited, I’m very thankful. I think the citizens of Neenah can really appreciate the decision that was made today. There’s so many times you don’t realize what you have until you almost lose it.”
Kaufert pledged the city’s support in giving the hospital what it needs to improve, in terms of infrastructure, transportation and technology.
Appleton Mayor Tim Hanna said he was happy that a decision was made by the board.
“There was a lot of anxiety across the whole Fox Cities — what’s going to happen, all the speculation, how much is it going to cost, what will happen to the other campuses,” Hanna told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. “It’s a lot of questions (ThedaCare) knew were out there and couldn’t answer at this point, but nobody had the answers.”
He added it’s reassuring to the city and to neighbors of the Appleton hospital that the use of that property won’t change.
“Now we don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “The neighbors have lived with a hospital for more than 60 years, and now they know that’s not going to change.”
In early 2016, ThedaCare’s board of trustees voted unanimously to study whether building a new hospital made more sense than reinvesting in ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Appleton and ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Neenah.
The initial announcement garnered an emotional response from Fox Cities residents, concerned about their access to their local hospitals, the personal history tied to each of the two hospitals and what would happen to the two existing properties if they were closed.