Ascension Wisconsin plans to close a hospital in Waukesha and consolidate a few lines of service among other facilities in the southeast region of the state.
The Waukesha "micro-hospital," which offers emergency and low-acuity care services, is slated to shut down in January, said Ascension Wisconsin Senior Director of External Relations Mo Moorman on Monday.
Related: UAB Health adds 5 hospitals in Ascension St. Vincent's deal
The facility is part of a joint venture between Glendale-based Ascension Wisconsin and micro-hospital developer Emerus, which staffs and manages the location. The decision to close was due to consistently low patient volumes, Moorman said.
Other facilities run by the joint venture will not be affected.
The organizations are looking for opportunities to transition staff to other facilities, Moorman said. About a dozen employees will be affected, and a few have found new roles, according to an Emerus spokesperson.
Ascension Wisconsin, a division of St. Louis-based Ascension, also plans to consolidate some inpatient behavioral health, labor and delivery, and catheterization laboratory services.
The system plans to invest $10 million by July to add inpatient behavioral health beds to its Milwaukee-based St. Francis Hospital. Ascension’s Racine and Ozaukee facilities will move their inpatient behavioral health service lines to St. Francis, Moorman said.
Ascension Wisconsin is also transitioning birthing services from Columbia St. Mary’s Ozaukee Campus in Mequon and Elmbrook Hospital in Brookfield to Columbia St. Mary’s Milwaukee Campus and St. Joseph Hospital, also in Milwaukee. The decision to consolidate labor and delivery services was driven by declining birth rates, Moorman said.
The timelines for the service transitions have not been determined, Moorman said. Moorman declined to answer questions regarding how many employees will be affected by the move.
Ascension has made several moves to shrink its footprint this year, including selling its St. Vincent's Health System to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System Authority earlier this month for $450 million.
In October, Henry Ford Health in Detroit took over eight Ascension hospitals as part of the formation of a joint venture. Ascension in July also sold 13 Illinois-based facilities to Ontario, California-based Prime Healthcare.
