Tuesday, June 28, 2011

State Board Rejects Mercy Proposal For Crystal Lake Hospital

As expected, it is reported that the Mercy Hospital proposal to locate a facility at the southeast corner of Route 31 and Three Oaks Road, Crystal Lake failed to garner the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board approval. The vote of the board was 8-1 against the proposal.

The report of the State Agency going into today’s meeting had five standards the report listed as not being met by the proposed hospital. This was the second attempt by Mercy to build a facility at this location. The first one was thwarted due to criminal aspects of the makeup of the State Board at that time, which resulted in serious criminal charges against those attempting to benefit from seeing that the proposal was approved. It was strongly stated at the time that Mercy had nothing to do with the criminal aspects.

Health Facilities and Services Review Board Comments
Reasons listed in the Health Facilities and Services Review Board report included:
Size of Project—“The applicants do not meet Obstetric bed size per room and recovery stations per station.”
Planning Area Need--“Applicants have requested beds in excess of the calculated need and there are existing facilities in the planning area operating below target occupancy.”
Unnecessary Duplication of Service/Maldistribution--“There are existing facilities within 30 minutes operating below the State Board’s target occupancy.”
Clinical services area other than categories of service--“Based upon the physician referrals submitted by the applicants the proposed project will lessen the utilization of existing providers.”
Reasonableness of Project Costs--“The A & E fees exceed the State Board standard by 1.51% or $1,024,287.”

These are the criteria the Board was to consider when making a decision.

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