Making the case for a C.R. medical mall

By Ted Townsend

As we grind into summer, everyone's looking forward to the fireworks. Not the Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day fireworks, but the ones over the proposed partial closing of Second Avenue for Physicians' Clinic of Iowa's new Medical Mall.

We've all seen the letters and guest editorials. So far, most of these are in opposition, coming from well-meaning people with a different vantage point either on keeping a street open for an easy escape through town, or not doing anything as a community to help “rich doctors,” or out of fear of adding to the already sky-high costs of health care.

So why is St. Luke's Hospital supporting the Medical Mall and the redirecting of traffic off two blocks of Second Avenue (between 10th and 12th streets)? Because it's about achieving a new model of care for our community.

I believe that for Cedar Rapids to compete effectively on the regional and statewide basis, that the consolidation of physicians into a more convenient, one-stop-shopping medical mall can make Cedar Rapids more attractive for many patients trying to decide where to get their care.

This consolidated model is exactly what we compete with in Iowa City and Rochester, Minn.

More and more patients like the idea of getting better coordination of their care. We can achieve part of this by just getting better at sharing information among providers, but in health care, the logistics matter.

Ultimately, our logic is simple. No one comes to Cedar Rapids because we have nice hospital beds. They come here for our physicians, more specifically our specialists. And in an increasingly complex world of health care delivery, particularly post-reform, Cedar Rapids health care will be driven by our ability to attract and retain the best and greatest number of these specialists.

There are hundreds more of them 25 miles to our south, but as a community we will have to decide if we want our specialty care to come from Iowa City or here at home. To me it seems pretty clear. I want to have as good or better choices here in Cedar Rapids, and the medical mall is one way to position our community more effectively.

Such a mall may actually take some volume for ancillary services away from both hospitals, but it is hard to argue that if the patients choose greater convenience or a lower out-of-pocket cost as reasons to go to a medical mall, that we should not let them have that choice.

St. Luke's will continue to compete for those services and we work to make sure there are still good reasons to choose us on occasion, but ultimately we need to work for the community's best interests, not our own.

As a community, we are very fortunate today. We have strong primary care physician choices, progressive hospitals, and an enviable track record of high-quality outcomes at low cost that has captured the attention of the nation. A great part of that success has been the quiet underpinning of those efforts by the specialist physicians in our community who have supported both hospitals while gradually working to better consolidate and coordinate their own part of the puzzle.

Keeping the largest specialty group in downtown Cedar Rapids, and helping them to facilitate the next generation of a model of care that will position our community more effectively for the future, is why St. Luke's wants to support both the Medical District and a new medical mall that will continue to make Cedar Rapids a better place to be.

Ted Townsend is president and CEO of St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids. Comments: TownseTE@ihs.org