BY SUE MacDONALD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Perhaps the first tip-off that this is not an ordinary hospital center is the elegant "Earth, Sun and Family" stained glass window above the entrance.
Or the herb store inside the fragrant gift shop.
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At a glance
Mercy Hospital Centers for Health and Wellness
Size - Cost: 200,000 square feet and $20 million each. Fairfield Center is at 3050 Mack Road, next to Mercy Hospital Fairfield. Anderson Township center is at 7495 State Road, across from Mercy Hospital Anderson.
According to Mercy officials, the two centers are the third- and fourth-largest hospital-run centers in the United States (behind Mac Athletic Center in Grand Rapids, Mich., and the Orlando Magic facility in Florida).
HealthPlex fitness club (at both sites): Competition-size lap pool, heated aquatic therapy pool, basketball courts, six tennis courts, 0.3-mile walk - run track, strength-training and exercise equipment, squash court, three racquetball courts, sauna, steam room and hot tub in locker rooms, KidFit Fun area, pro shop.
Membership capacity: 6,000 Fairfield, 5,500 Anderson.
Holistic Health Center (both sites): 100 classes, 300-seat auditorium, reference center - library, gift shop, herbal apothecary, meditation area and treatment rooms for biofeedback, acupuncture, therapeutic touch, bodywork - massage, reflexology, hypnotherapy - counseling, nutrition and more.
HealthPlex membership fees: $62 a month singles, $139 a month family. Fees include classes - instruction. Child care and reserved court times are extra. -- Sue MacDonald
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Or the meditation room inside the patient resource center. "People have walked in here and said they thought it was a museum or hotel lobby, not a fitness center," says Sean Slovenski, director of the HealthPlex fitness wing of the newly opened Health and Wellness Center at Mercy Hospital Fairfield.
This much is clear: Folks who describe Cincinnati as stodgy, conservative, close-minded and 10 years behind the cutting-edge coasts can eat their words here.
The new 200,000-square foot complex next to Mercy Hospital Fairfield is the first in the United States to bring under one roof traditional medical services and the growing field of alternative, or integrative medicine.
As such, it puts Cincinnati at the forefront of a growing trend of blending holistic health services and science-bound Western medicine -- acupuncture and cardiac rehab in the same building, for example -- with a consumer-driven, health-seeking patient market in mind.
"There are other centers in various stages of evolution that will ultimately look and feel a lot like this, but this sounds like the most comprehensive one that we've heard about," says Rick Wade, senior vice president of communications for the American Hospital Association.
"The definition of a hospital is changing, and this is what the hospital of the 21st century is going to a be -- a center for health as much as a center for curing," he says.
"I think some day, every major medical center will have something like this, especially as what we're called on to do as hospitals is to keep people healthy instead of just taking care of the old and the sick."
For years, Mercy's leaders and decision-makers have touted a "body-mind-spirit" approach to health care, and these centers are the bricks-and-mortar evidence of their vision. A second, slightly smaller health-wellness center with the same fitness-medical-holistic components will open July 1 at Mercy Hospital Anderson in Anderson Township.
"We really feel that these will be national showcases," says Sister Kathy Green, R.S.M., vice president for mission and community services of Mercy Regional Health Systems of Greater Cincinnati. "We're getting requests for information and tours from all over the country."
Which raises the questions: Why now? Why here?
Selection of services
The week after Fairfield's center opened in mid-April, 36-year-old
Stephen Rowekamp of Hamilton was sweating under the direction of physical therapist Carolyn Koynock to strengthen his knee in hopes of avoiding knee surgery.
The physical therapy suite is surrounded by other hospital and fitness services -- hand therapy and rehabilitation for patients with lung disease, a full basketball court, a competition-size swimming - lap pool and separate heated therapy pool, six tennis courts, TechnoGym exercise bikes and a running track.
One of several workout rooms in the Health and Wellness Center at Mercy Hospital.
(Tony Jones photos)
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But the cutting-edge component is the center's Holistic Health Services and Integrated Therapies wing, which has a resource library with Internet access, a meditation room with a soothing corner fountain, and treatment rooms for acupuncture, biofeedback, massage - bodywork, nutrition, hypnotherapy - counseling and therapeutic touch.
Mercy's leaders estimate the Fairfield and Anderson holistic centers each will log 100,000 patient visits a year.
Dr. John Robinson, medical director, says formalizing holistic health in a hospital-based center requires educating not just the public, but physicians, many of whom are curious about biofeedback, massage therapy, nutrition and the like but didn't learn about them in medical school.
"Some physicians already are referring people for massage therapy and stress management and such," he says, "but the vast majority of physicians are in the learning stages."
That's why Dr. Robinson also pushed for an Herbal Apothecary in the center's gift shop, to help doctors and patients wade through the hype and marketing surrounding herbs, nutritional supplements and vitamins promoted for health.
That learning phase coincides with the hospital's mind-body-spirit philosophy, says executive vice president Tom Ruthemeyer.
"The general public out there is interested in understanding how to take responsibility for their own health," he explains. "This gives them a way to do that. We are not doing this to get out of the acute-care business. We're doing it to complement the acute-care business."
Healthy investment
It's also an issue of economic survival for hospitals, AHA's Mr. Wade says. Insurance companies now pay doctors and hospitals a flat fee for each insured member, making it necessary to keep people healthy or improve their health rather than focus on disease and illness.
"We're moving into a new world and being asked to do something different," Mr. Wade explains. "As a hospital, you want to do everything you can to see that people don't have a medical problem that could have been prevented, and that if they do have one, to manage it effectively."
While Cincinnati's conservative roots often are cited for its lack of vision, Mercy's holistic leaders say a Midwestern location may be exactly what makes this leap forward possible.
On both coasts, they note, alternative and traditional medicine have co-existed for years, though they began with an us-vs.-them mentality that lingers.
In Cincinnati, holistic services have grown gradually but steadily, not only at Mercy but at TriHealth (the Good Samaritan-Bethesda Alliance), the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine (which offers electives in alternative medicine) and the Franciscan Wholistic Health Center (a freestanding complex on the grounds of Franciscan Hospital-Mount Airy).
Tristate doctors and patients have been introduced to and educated about alternative therapies simultaneously, making it less likely there will be a combative atmosphere, Dr. Robinson says.
Mr. Wade says it's a national phenomenon.
"More and more, alternative or complementary kinds of health care services are being accepted by traditional medicine," he says. "This is very much consumer-driven. People are incorporating these services into their lives, and traditional medicine is accepting it because they're finding powerful results associated with it."
Physical therapist Carolyn Koynock works with Stephen Rowekamp at Mercy HealthPlex.
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New clientele
That same kind of consumer approach is at work at Mercy HealthPlex, the sweeping fitness center that takes up more than half of the new building.
The Fairfield center has 1,100 members, most of them living within a 20-mile radius that encompasses northern Hamilton County and the Butler County communities of Fairfield and West Chester, Mr. Slovenski says. The Anderson center will recruit 5,500 members. "Health care is finally realizing that this is now more of a consumer market than it is an insurer's market," he explains. "We're catching a crowd that's a little older (average age is 45) and has different needs. A lot of them have never belonged to any kind of club or fitness center before."
"I liken this to a one-stop shop, like Meijer's," Mr. Slovenski says. "It's a place to shop for wellness, health education and lifestyle change needs, all under one roof."
And that, he says, is part of the goal: to attract people who think of exercise as part of an overall philosophy of life and wellness, not the singular pursuit of a perfect body.
