Wisconsin group acquires shuttered hospital, and plans for a new facility
The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative has purchased the St. Joseph’s Hospital, which closed last year. The cooperative is looking to build a new hospital.
After months of planning, the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative has made some steps in restoring hospital services in western Wisconsin.
The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative has purchase of the closed St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. It plans to offer hospital services in the building, renamed as Chippewa Valley Cooperative Hospital, and is also planning to build a new hospital.
The group has completed the purchase of the closed St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Citing financial pressures, Hospital Sisters Health System closed St. Joseph’s and Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in March 2024.
The nonprofit Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative has been working to bring acute care services back to the region. The cooperative bought St. Joseph’s and plans to begin offering some specialty services as soon as this fall. The building will be called Chippewa Valley Cooperative Hospital.
The cooperative is planning to use the shuttered hospital as a stopgap facility as it moves toward its long-term goal of building a new hospital in the region. The group is hoping to break ground on a new hospital building in the spring of 2026.
Robert Krause, chairman of the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative’s board of directors, said in a statement that the purchase of St. Joseph’s “represents hope returning to our community.”
“We’re moving aggressively to close the healthcare gaps that have plagued the Chippewa Valley since HSHS departed, ensuring residents no longer face dangerous delays or long-distance transfers for essential care,” Krause said in the statement.
Krause said that the cooperative would like to offer more services sooner than later in the former St. Joseph’s building, but he said it wasn’t feasible to move ahead with more services until the purchase of the building was complete.
“Now that we have the keys, we are fast tracking that process with the other organizations which need to be involved,” Krause said in a statement.
This fall, the cooperative plans to offer a cancer and infusion center at the St. Joseph’s building, along with some specialty care services to be announced later. The group expects to add radiation therapy services next year.
By the summer of 2026, the cooperative said it hopes to have a 30-bed hospital operating in the St. Joseph’s facility, with an emergency department and a labor and delivery unit. The group also expects to have an intensive care unit with five beds next summer.
Following the closure of St. Joseph’s Hospital last year, the cooperative is pushing the value of having more healthcare services in the region, governed by an organization based in the region.
“We think it matters where decisions are made for our local patients,” Krause said in a statement. “The Cooperative model ensures that all decisions made for the hospital and other healthcare services will be made here, prioritizing our community.”
Another Wisconsin-based health system is planning to build a small hospital in Chippewa Falls. Aspirus Health, based in Wausau, is planning to build a 10-bed hospital that is slated to open in the first half of 2026.
Matthew Heywood, president and CEO of Aspirus Health, told Chief Healthcare Executive® in a February interview that he’s looking forward to providing more care for the Chippewa Falls region in the wake of the closure of St. Joseph’s Hospital.
