MILWAUKEE, Wis.—Kathy’s House, a non-profit, hospital guest house in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, has opened a new 30,000-square foot, two-level facility on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center (MRMC) grounds, adjacent to the Froedtert Hospital. Celebrating 20 years, Kathy’s House has provided affordable lodging for thousands of people traveling to the Milwaukee area for medical treatment.

As demands for their services steadily increased, Kathy’s House began planning and researching for a new facility in 2016. And after touring facilities throughout the country, Kathy’s House chose national, interdisciplinary design firm HGA to test site options and design its new location with the twin goals of doubling capacity and expanding its services to better meet patient needs. Breaking ground in May of 2020, the new “Home for Healing” welcomed its first guests in June 2021.

HGA’s Milwaukee-based team, along with key Kathy’s House leadership, staff, board members and former and current guests focused the project around the Eight Dimensions of Wellness model by Dr. Margaret Swarbrick—emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, financial, occupational and social—as a guide in their design process. These elements are seen throughout the facility’s amenities as patients and families can enjoy and explore areas outside of their rooms and interact with others in a variety of welcoming areas including large and small scaled seating areas, a library, communal kitchen and dining area, business center, fitness center, a meditation room and family area.

Each of the 36 short- and long- stay guest suites were carefully designed to make the spaces feel like more than a hotel room. For example, in addition to two beds per room in twin, double, or queen-sizes, rooms have ample closet space, as well as comfortable chairs and workspaces, and the long-stay suites feature kitchenettes. To create a home-like environment, HGA focused on details such as providing operable windows in guest rooms and incorporating skylights to draw in as much fresh air and light from the outside, with views to the outdoors and the surrounding landscape.

Outside, there is a large courtyard with garden spaces for guests to enjoy, a walking trail that rings the site and an outdoor sitting deck overlooking the courtyard and ponds beyond. There are also seating areas at the front of the house to provide a variety of lighting conditions and a sense of home and welcomeness.

Unique to hospital guest houses like Kathy’s House, the new house has a separate wing for immunocompromised patients. Additionally, if a patient has a minor medical need, such as a blood draw or telehealth visit, HGA designed an inpatient medical space, allowing guests to stay at Kathy’s House rather than go to the hospital.

With a draw to sustainability, Home for Healing has large solar arrays on each wing’s roof that provide 40% of the facility’s total energy needs, significantly reducing annual electricity costs.

“HGA is proud to support the mission and innovative vision of Kathy’s House. Working closely with collaborative partners—Froedtert, CG Schmidt, Kohler Hospitality, and Legacy Solar, along with many others—we applied our collective expertise designing healthcare, workplace and multi-family architecture to create for Kathy’s House a healthy, restorative environment for the well-being of their guests,” said Kevin Allebach, practice group leader and principal with HGA.

Kathy’s House is a nonprofit hospital guest house that provides affordable lodging and caring support in a “home away from home” environment for people who need to travel to Milwaukee for medical care. Open 365 days a year, it is the only such facility in southeastern Wisconsin that serves patients of all ages, their families and caregivers, and accepts referrals from all area hospitals. Since opening KH has served 22,000 guests. Their new Home for Healing will serve 3,000 guests annually. Most are cancer patients, and more than 70 percent live in Wisconsin. Kathy’s House was founded in 2001 by the parents of Kathy Vogel Kuettner, a local mother of three and cancer patient.

HGA is a national interdisciplinary design firm with a practice that spans multiple markets, including corporate, cultural, education, local and federal government, healthcare, and science and technology.

The post HGA-Designed Nonprofit Hospital Guest House Debuts in Milwaukee appeared first on HCO News.

MILWAUKEE — Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin announced plans to build a new, small-scale community hospital near its Drexel Town Square Health Center in Oak Creek as the health network seeks to alleviate capacity limitations at its leading Wauwatosa hospital and expand its presence south of Milwaukee.

According to the hospital’s website, Froedtert Hospital’s occupancy is one of the highest in the state, often exceeding 85 percent with its emergency department being among the region’s busiest.

As a response from the health network – the new hospital, known as the “neighborhood hospital,” will offer eased access and efficiency to its emergency and inpatient care while being in close proximity to where people both work and live.

The new 18,000-square-foot hospital will include a 24/7 seven-bed emergency department and eight inpatient beds for patients requiring additional care, observation and tests.

The facility will also feature laboratory, pharmacy and imaging services, designed to treat medical emergencies that require attention beyond an urgent care clinic’s capability.

The neighborhood hospital will also employ Medical College of Wisconsin emergency physicians as well as experienced registered nurses which is projected to see about 15 to 25 patients per day and will employ about 40 full-and part-time staff.

“We see the neighborhood hospital as a way to keep high-quality care close to home in a convenient setting that is easy to navigate,” said Cathy Jacobson, president and chief executive officer of Froedtert Health in a press release. “It also will fill a need for this level of care in Oak Creek, which currently does not have a hospital.”

Jacobson continued, explaining that Froedtert hospital treats numerous patients from the Oak Creek area, which currently does not have a hospital, serving approximately 80 people per day who have traveled from Oak Creek over the last five years.

“It makes sense to provide emergency and inpatient services in their community,” said Jacobson.

The hospital is projected to cost about $10 million and although it will not be able to provide surgical services, it will be an option for some patients who require an overnight stay, such as those who are dehydrated or who have pneumonia, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Froedtert has joined Tandem Hospital Partners to create this micro hospital, a Houston, Texas-based firm that runs several other neighborhood hospitals across the country.

The health network presented the concept in May when plans were announced for a similar project in Mequon. The Mequon neighborhood hospital is also scheduled to open in early 2020.

The Froedtert & MCW health network includes five hospitals with more than 1,600 physicians and nearly 40 health centers and clinics, drawing patients from throughout the Midwest and the nation. In their most recent fiscal year, outpatient visits exceeded 1.1 million, inpatient admissions to their hospitals were 49,250 and visits to our network physicians totaled 932,000.

Froedtert Hospital hosts 585-beds and is nationally recognized for their physicians and nurses, research leadership, and state-of-the-art treatments and technology. It serves as an eastern Wisconsin referral center for advanced medical care in 37 specialties and is a major training facility with more than 1,000 medical, nursing and health technical students in training.

Reports from the Journal Sentinel and Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin contributed to this story.

The post Froedtert Health Announces Plans for New Wisconsin Hospital appeared first on HCO News.