It was a shock to 1,400 Wisconsin employees when Hospital Sisters Health System leaders, based in Illinois, made a trip to Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire in January to tell them they were shutting down their hospital—along with another hospital in Chippewa Falls. While that was going on, circular saws and drills could already be heard coming from an expansion project at a smaller, rural hospital in St. Croix County. Western Wisconsin Health opened a new, expanded obstetrics unit and a surgi