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When Hospital Sisters Health System announced it would be closing the doors on two of it’s Eau Claire facilities in 2024, it shocked the Chippewa Valley area. After finding out that the announcement was true, the first thought in the mind of Dave Minor, the CEO of the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce was, “Is there anything that we can do to revert this?”

After learning that there wasn’t, the goal immediately shifted. Now, it was “How do we help the employees?” This included a few main goals, largely trying to keep the employees in the area or potential retraining to aid them in joining different fields. With a new goal in mind, new challenges arose as well. With the number of people HSHS provided care for, Eau Claire wasn’t the only city affected. No single city board could really tackle the scope of the issue, while keeping the focus on the Chippewa Valley area as a whole. Due to this, the Chamber took charge instead, but as a small team it couldn’t tackle the issue alone. Thus, a task force formed.

Formation

The Task Force came together quickly. Comprising it were volunteers and local business leaders, all sharing the same goal of helping the community. The initial focus was gathering information, and spreading it to those who needed it. Thus, they worked to create resources that would help streamline finding a new doctor for those who lost their medical care, trying to help as many people as they could. The goal was to be “the fireman” as Minor puts it, not looking for what caused the “fire”, but rather “keeping people focused at the task on hand” and dealing with the repercussions everyone was currently feeling.

Minor shared that a large part of what made the Task Force work was collaboration. Everyone banning together with a shared purpose and intent to help served as a major source of its strength. Minor said he would tell people to “check their egos at the door,” reminding them to find solutions first and foremost. Members willingness to do that vastly aided the Task Force.

Goals

Another part of the Task Force was advocating the community’s needs to the state and local levels. The two main things that would help the community most were the potential $15 million dollars the state has allocated to HSHS but was unspent, and the Sacred Hearts Hospital building. Minor shares that though the money would have been helpful, the main goal was the building, as it was more achievable and could provide great value for the region. Sadly, no compromise for the money was found, and ultimately it never came to the region. The building, however, got acquired by UW-Eau Claire, saving the building from the possibility of being demolished. That foresight has paid off, as the building, now called the 900 District, has the intent of becoming a strong center for medical innovation, and has already started doing so.

Minor shared that a big reason for this achievement was the Chamber’s ability to stay in the middle of politics. When coming to the table with state and local legislatures, he offered that its most important to have the interests of your community first. Staying in the middle helps to achieve those goals by working with both sides to find a compromise.

Recovering From the Closure

With the closure of HSHS a done deal, another thought on the Task Force’s mind was recovery. Minor shares a saying which summed up the Task Force’s thoughts going forward, “I would rather have a hundred business, that employ a thousand workers each, rather than 1 business that employs ten thousand.” He shared that losing one of the hundred business would still be difficult on the community, but not nearly as disastrous as the singular business going down. Thus, attracting a myriad of business to prevent a similar situation, became the goal. This is largely what Eau Claire has seen, with a number of smaller practices popping up as years go on. More and more business are coming into the area and opening up facilities, filling the void left by HSHS.

Minor said looking back, he certainly feels “we are better off than we were that day” when HSHS closed. He thinks there are certainly some things that still need improving, such as healthcare costs, and it will take everyone to fix it. As a community however, he shares that the Chippewa Valley area can impact and change that by working together and doing things differently.

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