Stroger Hospital Wants Your Business

By Chuck Sudo in News on Aug 15, 2011 2:30PM

Michael DaKidd

Stroger Hospital has launched an advertising campaign with the intent of trying to lure patients from other hospitals. Good luck with that.

The ad campaign is targeted to obstetrics and pediatrics, two specialties where Stroger has seen a decline in patient entries since former Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the All Kids insurance program, guaranteeing health insurance coverage for expectant mothers and their children, into effect in 2004. Prior to the program, Stroger delivered almost 6,000 babies a year. Last year the hospital only delivered 900 babies.

County spokesman Lucio Guerrero said the ad campaign is also intended to dispel notions some may have of Stroger being a patronage dump with inadequate facilities.

"People thought we were still at the old building. People thought we were dirty. People thought our doctors were inadequate. People thought we were still run by politicians," said Lucio Guerrero. "We're trying to show people we have one of the newest facilities in the Illinois Medical District and, chances are, your doctor trained at our hospital."

Again, good luck with that. We aren't alone in thinking that may be a futile effort. Health Capital Group president James Unland doesn't believe the campaign will make a dent in the hospital's reputation. He also cites other factors in his opinion.

Unland said county politicians made a poor decision in the mid-1990s to build Stroger Hospital, which centralized county health care in a medical district in Chicago he argued already was saturated with hospitals. The health care trend, he said, had moved toward local hospitals and outpatient care in neighborhoods and that the county turned in the opposite direction.

The county's patient base — the poor who come mostly from the South and Far South sides — doesn't want to take three buses to get to a hospital, he said. Once the health care reform act takes effect and Medicaid reimbursements from the federal government increase to the same level as Medicare, local hospitals are going to welcome Medicaid patients with open arms.

"Hence, county hospital will lose even more market share," Unland said. "No one who has an alternative will go to county hospital in my opinion. There's no reason to. People want health care close to where they live."