Bad timing on urgent need for hospitals

Emergency rooms got about four visits for every 10 people in the United States in 2005, by the federal government's count. Some people -- poor of health, accident prone or lacking insurance -- go there all the time. Plenty of others get to skip a few years before something goes seriously awry.

Either way, you want an ER close by.

That's why many residents of northwest Lake County are so upset by the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board's rejection last week of two different proposals to build new hospitals.

Vista Health Systems sought approval for a 140-bed hospital in Lindenhurst. Advocate Health Care proposed a 144-bed hospital in Round Lake.

Both proposed sites are too close to other hospitals, the state board said, and those existing hospitals have 209 too many beds.

It sounds very black and white.

Except -- some key data is faulty. The state relied on MapQuest, the online driving directions service, to estimate travel times between each of the proposed hospital sites and the closest existing hospitals. Thirty minutes is a reasonable drive in a non-emergency, the state board says.

MapQuest puts residents of both Lindenhurst and Round Lake within 30 minutes of three hospitals.

But our reporter found higher drive times: between 26 and 44 minutes from Lindenhurst to the existing hospitals during different times of day.

From Round Lake, our reporter drove 16 to 34 minutes to the existing hospitals, making each trip once during rush hour and once outside of rush hour.

The distance to existing hospitals from towns farther away, such as Fox Lake and Antioch, wasn't taken into account by the state.

The state board concedes MapQuest estimates are low. In new fact-finding studies, the board plans to add 15 percent to MapQuest's numbers for suburban trips.

But that didn't happen in this case.

And so, the state board said no to any new hospitals in the fastest-growing segment of Lake County.

"I can't even fathom how people who don't live here can judge what we need in Lake County," Lake Villa Rescue Chief J.R. Halek said. Advocate and Vista have six months to counter the findings; if they're denied again, the proposals die.

We urge Advocate and Vista to give it another try. And we urge the Health Facilities Planning Board to try a little harder.

Tarnished by a 2004 extortion scandal now playing out very publicly in the federal corruption trial of politically connected Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the board should be especially mindful of the need to establish accuracy and credibility.

Spending a little time driving around northwest Lake County would be a good start.