After a decade of losing money, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Belleville, Ill., is joining a growing number of hospitals around the country by closing an obsolete facility and building a $300-million facility seven miles northeast in a wealthier city that is one of the fastest-growing communities in the St. Louis region, according to an article on the Healthcare Finance News website.
Hospitals have followed population migrations before, but the relocations are becoming more common, the article said, partly due to aging facilities and the need to attract better-paying patients.
A 2012 study found that hospitals in 12 markets used geographic expansion strategies.
Currently, hospital relocations are planned or underway in South and Central Florida, eastern Tennessee, central Georgia, Birmingham, Ala., and northeast Ohio.
Hospital officials point to their aging, landlocked facilities and argue it is cheaper to build, rather than renovate.
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