Hospitals are making decisions based on the financial health of the organization, he said. These decisions could potentially lead to access issues for patients if they have to travel further for resources, but it could also help preserve long-term stability within the organization.
“There were many health care organizations prior to COVID that were on the cusp or at risk of heading toward some type of financial distress, a poor financial health scenario,” Nelson said.
They received an influx of funding due to the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed them to stay afloat for a little bit longer, he said.
“What we’re seeing now is as people are coming out of that, we’re going back to where those organizations were at the time (prior to COVID),” Nelson said.
Adult hospitals in the region reduced their footprints in certain sectors, such as maternity and emergency services, as children’s hospitals continue to expand in the region, particularly with Dayton Children’s commitment toward addressing the youth mental health crisis.
Large health systems are also looking ahead to what future health challenges there will be, such as making investments in primary care and orthopedics in order to prepare for needs of patients who are getting older.
Those issues lead the top health care stories in the region in 2024.
1. Premier Health YMCA opens on the old Good Samaritan site
The year kicked off with the opening of the Northwest Health and Wellness Campus in early January within the Premier Health YMCA, which finished construction in late 2023 on the former Good Samaritan Hospital site, at 2649 Salem Ave.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
The $18 million facility includes multiple partners, but the opening brought on new protests from community members still upset over the loss of Good Samaritan Hospital. The Clergy Community Coalition later attempted to get an initiative on the November 2024 ballot for residents to vote on new taxes to build a public hospital in West Dayton, but the initiative failed to get enough signatures or approval from city leaders.
Premier Health, which owned Good Samaritan, closed the hospital in 2018 and demolished all of the structures on the site, except for a multi-story parking garage.
2. Kettering Health closes its emergency room in Piqua
By Feb. 1, Kettering Health ceased emergency department operations at its facility in Piqua to focus on other priorities like primary care and reduce costs, the hospital system said.
Credit: LEE ANN YAHLE;Lee Ann Yahle 2020
Credit: LEE ANN YAHLE;Lee Ann Yahle 2020
The Piqua Fire Department transported approximately 44% of its EMS patients to Kettering Health Piqua in 2023, the department said. The majority, around 56%, were taken to Upper Valley Medical Center, which is between Piqua and Troy.
3. Premier Health closes delivery unit in Troy
Premier Health continued to consolidate maternity services at its flagship hospital, Miami Valley Hospital.
Premier Health announced it would no longer deliver babies at Upper Valley Medical Center, which became effective Feb. 29 and was due to the hospital being unable to recruit the necessary physicians, the hospital said at the time.
“It was our inability to recruit providers, so we’ve been spending approximately the last 18 months trying to recruit physicians to Upper Valley Medical Center, and we have not been successful,” Kevin Harlan, president of UVMC and Atrium Medical Center, said in January.
Shutting down services in certain areas shifts patients into other areas, Nelson said, which may create transportation and access issues. Technology in health care can help supplement those gaps, Nelson said, like with telehealth visits and assets with AI.
4. Area hospitals lose trauma level status
Two hospitals in the region let their status as verified level III trauma centers lapse, first Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek on April 13 and Miami Valley Hospital South in Centerville on May 1.
The emergency departments will remain open at both hospitals, but trauma care will mostly be available in Montgomery and Butler counties, and with one level III trauma center, Upper Valley Medical Center, in Miami County.
5. Dayton Children’s continued expansion
Dayton Children’s continued its work on building a new $110 million mental health hospital, now called the Mathile Center for Mental Health and Wellness, on its main campus off of Valley Street in Dayton. The center is expected to open in summer 2025.
Other projects Dayton Children’s started this year include its $13 million kinship housing project in the Old North Dayton neighborhood and two new facilities in Centerville-Washington Township and Springboro.
6. RI International makes swift exit from Montgomery County
In May, the mental health crisis services provider RI International made an abrupt decision to leave Montgomery County, providing only two weeks' notice due to a clause in its last contract with the Montgomery County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) board that allowed the mental health crisis services provider to make that quick exit.
A majority of the ADAMHS board then decided not to follow staff recommendations for a replacement, instead shifting to 988 for its crisis services call center and rolling back mobile response and crisis center services while going through a RFP process, or request for proposals, which is still ongoing.
“Things are getting so much better. We shouldn’t go back,” Michelle Campbell, a Dayton mother whose son has schizophrenia, said during a board meeting in May.
7. Reduced ADAMHS funding
Agencies relying on funding from Montgomery County ADAMHS dealt with receiving lower funding amounts compared to previous years. Some of the drops were significant, particularly to prevention services.
This was due to the ADAMHS board taking voluntary cuts to its funding from the Human Services Levy, which provides funding to multiple county agencies.
Both of those topics prompted backlash toward the board, which went over the difficulty of funding mental health crisis services for adults. ADAMHS staff also maintained they were being fiscally responsible by lowering its expenses, which included cutbacks on funding.
8. Region to get its own public mental health hospital again
In June, the state set aside $10 million in Ohio’s capital budget for a new mental health hospital in Dayton. The $10 million allocation will go toward planning, land acquisition and initial design work, the governor’s office said. The total cost of the hospital, which will have more than 200 beds, is estimated at around $273 million.
9. Cancer diagnoses increasing among younger generations
Researchers are continuing to find that cancer is affecting younger generations more often, particularly finding incidence rates for Generation X and millennials have increased over time for 17 types of cancer out of 34 types studied.
While there’s not an explicit cause, doctors are speculating lifestyle factors could be to blame.
10. Youth mental health crisis
Many children and adolescents are struggling with worsening mental health conditions as they continue to process the trauma from the pandemic and adapt to the modern world. Social media and screen time, adverse childhood events and a mental health care system that can be confusing at times can all contribute to the complexity of the issue.
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