New McLaren hospital is part of a boom in local health care investment

LANSING — By the time McLaren Greater Lansing finishes construction on its recently-announced $450 million hospital in 2021, Lansing-area institutions will have poured at least $1 billion into health care and medical research facilities over 10 years.  

That includes around $385 million in investments from the Sparrow Health System for projects such as the Herbert-Herman Cancer Center and the Sparrow Health Center.

It includes nearly $170 million spent by Michigan State University for the construction of its Bio Engineering Facility and the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building still under construction on the south end of campus. 

“If you stop reinvesting in your facilities even for a few years, you will be out of date and you won't be competitive in the way you need to be," said Dennis Swan, Sparrow's president and CEO. 

But the spate of health care-related investment is something more, said Bob Trezise, president and CEO of the Lansing Economic Area Partnership, an important step in creating more economic opportunities in Lansing for all industries.

A strong health care system is a sign of an economically promising big city, he said, and can make Lansing more appealing for companies looking to expand or relocate. 

"We have to be a big city," he said. "We have to compete." 

A recruiting tool

McLaren’s new cancer center will sit in what is now a vacant plot of land with tall grasses linking two wetlands between Collins Road and US 127, just south of MSU’s main campus. The hospital and ambulatory care center will be several hundred yards away.

The land is part of the MSU Foundation's University Corporate Research Park, and McLaren, which will acquire the land from the foundation, has space to expand the project if needed. 

Construction will begin next year. The hospital will have 240 beds, a cancer center and an ambulatory care center. The main hospital building will be nine stories tall and have 18 operating rooms, according to current plans.

“It is unprecedented to build a hospital from the ground up, especially in collaboration with a Big Ten university,” said McLaren Greater Lansing President and CEO Tom Mee. 

The proximity to the university will allow the school and the hospital to work together on research, educational programs and clinical trials in ways they haven't been able to before, he said. 

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Specific details on that enhanced partnership haven't been announced, but McLaren's leaders have said MSU's involvement will play a large role in the project's success.

"Faculty who come to MSU also want to ensure they have clinical or research opportunities as well," Jason Cody, a spokesperson for MSU, said in an email. "A Big Ten research school in proximity to an advanced health care facility is a powerful recruitment tool for both MSU and McLaren." 

'A whole new level'

Building an entirely new hospital will allow the health care system to design a space with current technology in mind, Mee said. Instead of strengthening existing floors to support heavy medical equipment, the hospital will be built accommodate that equipment. 

“On a scale of one to ten our investments have been a two, and this is really the ten," Mee said. "Our investments to date, while they’ve involved tens of millions of dollars, have mostly involved the acquisition of certain pieces of equipment so this a whole new level." 

McLaren plans to conduct focus groups with patients, their family members and community members to get feedback on how to best design the new facility. Mee said he wants to create an "overwhelmingly positive" experience for patients and their visitors and expects to get calld from around the world about the project when it's completed. 

The new hospital won't offer any new services apart from what McLaren already offers Mee said, but the space will allow for better communication and fewer facility-related hiccups than what's typical in its current buildings. 

“You can do everything right and create this wow experience, and then somebody gets stuck in an elevator," he said. 

The new facility is also a chance to change perceptions about the hospital, Mee said, and complement the changes McLaren has already made to improve the patient experience. 

“Mclaren has transformed itself over the last five years," Mee said. "If your last experience with us was five years ago, maybe it wasn’t good. It’s our job to turn it around, and let them know that the way we delivered care has changed." 

'A good sign'

There are 133 community hospitals in the state of Michigan, said Laura Wotruba, a spokesperson for the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. A hospital needs to have an emergency room to fit their definition. 

The organization doesn't track new hospitals, but Wotruba said, in her five years with MHA, she can recall one other instance of an entirely new hospital built from the ground up. 

“When you see an investment in facilities, whether that's building a new facility or reinvesting in an existing building, that’s a good sign," Wotruba said. 

Still, it takes more than new buildings to move forward, Swan said. 

“If you have the right talent and you’ve got teamwork, that’s how you remain competitive," he said. "You better have nice facilities too, but you better have people to power the whole thing.”

Swan said he doesn't expect McLaren's new hospital to have a large impact on Sparrow. 

“What it means for us is we’ll continue to focus on meeting the needs of our patients," he said. "That’s what we’ll do, and so I’m sure it’ll help sharpen our focus, but it’s pretty sharp already. "

Contact reporter Haley Hansen at (517) 267-1344 or hhansen@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @halehansen.