ProHealth’s $55 million hospital to add 100 jobs
New building expected to be ready by end of 2019
ProHealth Care plans to build a $55 million hospital on its medical campus in Mukwonago, becoming the most recent local health system to announce expansion plans in a bid to gain or maintain market share.
ProHealth has a medical office building and free-standing emergency department and employs about 210 people in Mukwonago.
The new hospital will have 24 beds and is expected to add about 100 new jobs in areas such as nursing, surgery, maintenance and food service.
The planned hospital will not provide labor and delivery services or have an intensive care unit. Those services are available at ProHealth’s Waukesha Memorial Hospital.
Construction is expected to begin this summer and be completed by the end of next year.
“We have been enhancing our services in Mukwonago for a number of years,” Susan Edwards, ProHealth’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Now we’re ready to take a big step forward. We are excited to bring hospital services to residents of the Mukwonago area for the first time.”
ProHealth announced plans in 2008 to build a hospital in Mukwonago at a projected cost of $75 million to $90 million but backed away after the recession.
The company opened a 66,000square-foot, freestanding emergency department in 2015.
It is in the midst of adding a 31,000-
square-foot addition to its medical office building on the campus.
ProHealth provides medical and radiation oncology, cardiac diagnostics, physical and occupational therapy, sports medicine, diagnostic imaging, mammography and laboratory services in Mukwonago.
ProHealth’s campus, at 240 Maple Ave., near the intersection of Highway 83 and I-43, is 15.6 miles from Waukesha Memorial Hospital and 21 miles from Aurora West Allis Medical Center.
In a statement, Fred Winchowky, Mukwonago village president, said residents have long wanted a hospital in the community.
“This is very welcome news,” he said in the statement. “People in the area will be able to receive hospital care close to home. And the hospital will bring new employment opportunities to our area.”
ProHealth reported solid profits in its 2017 fiscal year: net income, which includes investment gains on its reserves, of $117.8 million on revenue of $765.3 million.
It also had $768.8 million in unrestricted cash and investments.
But the new hospital will add to ProHealth’s costs, and it’s only the most recent building project announced by a health system in the Milwaukee area.
For example, Aurora Health Care, part of Advocate Aurora Health, recently announced plans to build a $130 million ambulatory surgery center and physician office building in Pleasant Prairie. And Aurora plans to spend more than $300 million to build a hospital, outpatient surgery center and medical office building in Kohler, replacing its existing hospital in Sheboygan.
Froedtert Health reportedly will spend more than $30 million to build a new health center in West Bend. And it has begun a $43 million expansion at Froedtert Hospital, a project to add four floors to its Center for Advanced Care, which itself cost $140 million.
In the past decade, new hospitals also have been opened in Summit, Grafton and Franklin.
The spending has been criticized by some health economists who questioned whether health systems are focused on controlling costs and slowing the rise in health care spending.
“A nonprofit institution that manages to bring in more revenues will pretty much, I guarantee you, figure out a way to spend it,” Chapin White, a health economist and senior policy researcher at Rand Corp., said during a briefing held by the Alliance for Health Policy this year.
“This is very welcome news. People in the area will be able to receive hospital care close to home. And the hospital will bring new employment opportunities to our area.”
Fred Winchowky, Mukwonago village
president