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In the coming year, Our Lady of the Lake Health has its eye on growing its offerings to other areas of the Capital Region.
Baton Rouge market President Chuck Spicer tells Daily Report the health system plans to announce “major program investments” in Baton Rouge and other Louisiana ministries in early 2025, noting the need for access and services in surrounding parishes and rural areas.
“Louisiana’s rural population is getting sicker,” Spicer says. “We want to balance the investments between the traditional hospital setting and also keep people out of the hospital and in a physician’s office when they can. You’ll see those investments be distributed evenly between the two settings and even with virtual care.”
By the end of February, Our Lady of the Lake Ascension will offer new cancer treatments for patients in Gonzales. The hospital renovated a part of the building so patients in Ascension Parish can stay closer to home for treatment, which will free up space at the OLOL Regional Medical Center.
Though details are to come after the first of the year, Spicer did share that as OLOL continues to expand, the ministry is less focused on owning more facilities and is more concerned with providing specific communities with the help they need to make a difference.
“We need to not forget about the underserved part of our state and rural Louisiana that is getting harder and harder to have caregivers and physicians and hospitals be viable there,” Spicer says. “How do we make sure the state has appropriate access? How do we make sure the big health systems are in the right place at the right time for sick people? That will be our focus for 2025 and beyond.”
Most recently, OLOL was key in the development of a sepsis-detecting test.
