Southwest Health Announces Major Facilities Expansion

To meet growing health care needs in the region, Southwest Health will break ground this coming spring on yet another major expansion to its hospital campus in Platteville. The construction project will add 26,000 square feet of ultra-modern and patient-friendly spaces, allowing some services to move into larger spaces and accommodating increases in demand for primary care, pharmacy, rehabilitation, specialty care, and orthopedics.

Over the past six months, the organization’s leadership team and Board of Directors worked together to assemble detailed projections of future needs for health care services across all service lines for residents across southwest Wisconsin.

“We looked out five years, ten years, and beyond, and the math is clear,” says Southwest Health CEO Dan Rohrbach. “We need more space now and will certainly need more in the next several years to continue meeting community needs into the future.”

Southwest Health is well-versed in construction projects to accommodate growing needs and changing medical technologies. Since the early years of health care in the region and through the formation of Southwest Health as a not-for-profit health care organization in 1985, leaders have carefully and responsibly responded to community needs with construction, modernization, and technology purchases. Their attention has not only been directed toward facilities but also ongoing staff development that’s created a workforce that leads the nation in many respects, including patient satisfaction.

The board’s visionary planning also resulted in 2005 in the opening of an entirely now hospital campus in its current location. “That move launched a new era in health care in southwest Wisconsin,” says Rohrbach. “We’ve been remarkably successful in recruiting physicians, for example, growing from just two employed practitioners several years ago to more than 50 today. We’re now proud to be home to more doctors and other health professionals than our area has ever known. Our team has more tools and technology than ever before to achieve our vision of creating a healthier southwest Wisconsin. Plus, our facilities offer improved comfort and privacy and greater access to care, not to mention a very appealing environment in which to work, which is key to our ability to recruit and retain what we know to be among the best health care teams in the nation.”

Southwest Health announces construction will begin this spring on a 26,000 square foot addition of ultra-modern outpatient spaces to the south side of their hospital and clinic campus.

In recent years, Southwest Health has made other notable additions to its facilities. In 2014, they added 20,000 square feet of clinic space that is home to the region’s only Women’s Center as well as the highly-regarded Orthopedic Institute. In 2016, they also elevated local EMS services to paramedic level and constructed a new 8,500 square foot facility. And in 2018, they redesigned, renovated, and expanded their surgical department to improve patient care and keep pace with growing demand for services.

The Southwest Health Board anticipates this new infrastructure development will require an $8.5 million investment which will allow the health system to continue their remarkable history of growth while also allowing the region’s communities to continue to thrive. Rohrbach credits the planners of the 2004 facility with the foresight to design the building for this current expansion, helping reduce costs and accommodate seamless flow for patients and staff into the new spaces to be added to the south side of the hospital campus where employee parking now exists. “The former board did us all a favor by envisioning this future growth and creating a facility tailor made for this new construction.

Says Rohrbach, “Healthcare has a remarkable history here in southwest Wisconsin. We’re proud of where we’ve been, but our job here today is to ensure continued success and ensure our ability to serve the good people of this area long into the future.”

 About Southwest Health

Southwest Health is a growing, high performing regional health care network and among southwest Wisconsin’s largest employers. On their hospital campus in Platteville, Southwest Health provides wide-ranging, high quality acute care services, including medical and surgical care, emergency, urgent care, and EMS/ambulance services, orthopedics, rehabilitation, women’s health, specialists clinics, a full service eye center, the area’s largest family medical clinic, outpatient behavioral health services for all ages, and customer-oriented retail pharmacy services. Also in Platteville, they operate an inpatient behavioral health facility, providing geriatric psychiatry in a safe and comfortable setting. And in Cuba