Sioux Falls Business Journal

The ambitious goals that Sioux Falls’ two competing health systems are laying out have the collective effect of taking one’s breath away.

Not in a mesmerizing, pie-in-the-sky kind of way. Rather in a now-that-takes-guts, admirable kind of way.

The decisions that Avera Health and Sanford Health executives are making remind me of a “Rocky” movie in which  prize fighters throw bruising punches at each other in a deliberative attempt to be the last man standing.

We have ringside seats to an all-out, competitive slugfest unfolding in this growing town on the prairie.

You can almost hear the ding of the bell heralding the end of each round.

I suppose boxing might not be the most apropos analogy for what’s unfolding in the local medical industry. After all, we are talking about a field with a core mission of helping people heal.

Still, recent announcements by both health systems leave no doubt that each institution is a contender in an increasingly competitive environment.

To that end, Sanford Health recently announced four possible research topics on a disease that’ll be at the center of its Sanford Project – a mission to either significantly advance the treatment of, or even cure outright, the chosen disease.

The diseases that made the top four are lupus, juvenile diabetes, human papillomavirus and pediatric multiple sclerosis. Sanford Health folks mince no words whenever they talk about their intention to deliver a mouth-dropping impact in one of these fields of research.

But not to be outdone is Avera McKennan Hospital & University Center. Officials recently unveiled plans for the Avera Cancer Institute, a $90 million facility that will be the largest construction project in Sioux Falls history. Part of that facility will include space for Avera’s expanded surgical center.

And I haven’t even mentioned goings-on at other medical institutions – most notably the expansion unfolding at the Sioux Falls Surgical Center.

For Sioux Falls, there are obvious benefits from the intense competition: construction jobs; an increase of doctors, technicians and other personnel who’ll keep operations going; clusters of medical knowledge and expertise.

But there also will be some difficult yet legitimate questions that increasingly will pop up for these medical institutions as their industry expands. Always lurking around the corner is the suspicion that bigger and better facilities might tempt physicians to overtreat.

Health officials will need to be prepared to offer consumers hard data to defend these continual expansions – not only in terms of what’s good for the institutions’ survival, but also primarily in terms of what’s best for the healing of their patients.

Weighing the potential gains with potential drawbacks, one can’t help but be hopeful about the medical advancements that might evolve because of the stiff competition flowing throughout the Sioux Falls medical industry.

It’s enough to make one sit back ringside, admire the punches that each institution throws and say, “Nice hit.”