Hospitals Muscle In on Fitness Centers

The clientele rarely resembles the musclemen and spandex-clad women in ads for commercial fitness centers. And that’s precisely the intent of the newest competition.

Looking for new revenue sources and innovative ways to attract future patients and further their health care mission, hospitals around the country have been opening fitness centers that cater to middle-aged and elderly folks who might feel intimidated alongside the buff-and-toned crowd.

There are at least nine such facilities in New Jersey. Nationwide, the number has grown from four in the 1970s to more than 600, with one-third built between 1997 and 2000.

“More and more hospitals are beginning to look at [opening] them,” said Bob Boone, head of the Medical Fitness Assn. in Evanston, Ill. “I expect you’ll see a lot of starts in the next three to five years.”

Membership has grown from 30,000 people in 1983 to 1.3 million last year. The association projects 2.9 million members by 2010 thanks to the aging population.

“As hospitals expand from places to treat the sick and injured to places that promote wellness and [disease] prevention, fitness centers fit into the chain of care,” said Ron Czajkowski, spokesman for the New Jersey Hospital Assn.

In New Jersey, hospitals following that strategy range from Bayshore Community Hospital in Holmdel, which opened its center in September, to JFK Medical Center in Edison, which a decade ago converted its sports medicine facility to a general fitness center.

All provide standard exercise equipment, individual help from trainers, stress- and weight-management programs, medical evaluations and health lectures by the hospitals’ doctors. Extras range from massages, seaweed wraps and other spa services to day care, “healthy” cafes and complementary medicine programs.

The centers make financial sense for hospitals, which care for an increasing number of people as outpatients. Now they can guide those with chronic health problems into customized programs with regular assessments and as much medical monitoring as they need.

That’s the premise of the “FitCare” program at the fitness center that Virtua Health opened last July next to its hospital in Voorhees. It serves as a transition for patients referred by hospital physicians, a place where patients can continue physical therapy, cardiac rehabilitation and other programs.

Many of Virtua’s 3,600 members are healthy community residents and a significant number are hospital workers, said Maureen Miller, vice president for ambulatory services. Regular patrons range from “twentysomethings lifting weights” to an 86-year-old lady with a walker who comes to swim in the $15-million center’s lap pool.

“It amazes me how well everybody fits together,” Miller said.

The Voorhees center has been so popular that it already has expanded operating hours twice, keeps adding new staff and equipment, and may build an addition to enlarge therapeutic heated pools, executive director Jim Ellis said.

Ellis is employed by Power Wellness Management, one of a handful of companies that manage fitness centers for hospitals or serve as consultants. Power Wellness, based outside Chicago, operates nine centers in six states.

The facilities can help hospitals financially. Newer ones, which generally are larger and better designed, tend to turn a small profit, while older ones break even or lose a little.

Hospitals also are banking on building relationships with new residents who join the centers, hoping they will choose their hospital when they need medical care.

Hospital centers say their membership fees are comparable to or slightly less than those at commercial gyms, in part because nearly three-fourths of the hospital fitness centers are not-for-profit operations, giving them tax-exempt status.

That irritates operators of commercial fitness centers. With their trade group, the International Health, Racket & Sportsclub Assn., they have worked to persuade local officials that hospital centers have an unfair advantage over taxpaying ones, said Helen Durkin, the group’s public policy director.

Hospital officials argue that there is room for both. They say three-fourths of their members have never belonged to a health club and their average age is 50, significantly older than the clientele at places such as Gold’s Gym.

Medical Fitness Assn.:

https://www.medicalfitness.org

International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Assn.: https://www.ihrsa.org