FRI AM News: CSG panel weighs energy reliability amid growing demand; WisBusiness: the Podcast with Abbey Crocker, Tailored Remedy

July 26, 2024

— Permitting reform and interagency communication at all levels are keys for state governments to accommodate rising energy needs, panelists told a collection of lawmakers in Ohio this week.

Rising load due to data centers and other energy-intensive users coming online was front and center during a recent panel of the Council of State Governments’ Midwestern Legislative Conference in Columbus.

The discussion over the region’s energy future centered on the balance state policymakers face in maintaining reliability in a complex area of policy that moderator Tony Clark acknowledged “can get weedy fast.” Clark is a senior adviser at D.C. communications firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer and a former member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

He attributed the rising demand in part to the ongoing “explosion” of data centers alongside resource retirements in part due to policies favoring carbon reduction.

Microsoft in May announced plans for building a $3.3 billion data center in southeastern Wisconsin’s Mount Pleasant by 2026, with a focus on cloud computing and AI. In its announcement, the Washington-based tech company said it will build a new 250 megawatt solar project in Wisconsin that would begin operating in 2027.

“Nationwide they’re saying something like 1% per year load growth,” Clark said of demand projections. “In reality, that’s a lot. It’s probably more than double what the demand increase has been year over year.”

Maria Haberman, vice president of external affairs for AEP Ohio, said the proliferation of those large users has given the utility another chance to engage with officials.

“It has given us an opportunity to educate our state leaders…what goes into planning the system,” she said.

See the full story at WisBusiness.com.

— This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Abbey Crocker, founder of Tailored Remedy.

Crocker, a biomedical sciences student at Marquette University in Milwaukee, created the startup company this year to “democratize” medical information using an artificial intelligence platform. The AI software aims to present complex medical information in an accessible way, drawing from a number of data sources.

Her entrepreneurship journey started while Crocker was working as a certified nursing assistant in long-term care during the COVID-19 pandemic, before later transitioning to home health care.

“In my time working, I saw an overwhelming problem with medications interacting, or just in general people being overmedicated … I’m trying to figure out ways to solve this problem,” she said.

She wants to empower patients to “take health care back into their own hands” and play more of a role in their own health care experience.

“You would go onto this chatbot, you would ask it a question, and from there it will give you an answer, but in natural language so you don’t need to have a background in medical or health care … to be able to get an answer that you can understand,” she said.

Crocker says this information would help people be better informed during conversations with health care providers. She plans to initially market it to long-term care facilities and other care sites as a tool for older patients.

Tailored Remedy won the Brady Innovation Award in April at the university’s Brewed Ideas Competition and has been awarded a fellowship to develop an early version of the platform. Crocker’s also taking part in the gener8tor gBETA program in Kenosha for early-stage startups.

“It’s truly an amazing experience,” she said. “It’s amazing to surround yourself with people that are doing exactly what you’re doing as well, bouncing off ideas. The cohort, we’re all very open to sharing opinions, and it’s a great setting.”

Listen to the podcast and see the full list of WisBusiness.com podcasts.

— Home affordability in Wisconsin has hit a record-low for the second month in a row, the Wisconsin Realtors Association reports.

The group’s report for June shows the state’s median home price rose 7.4% over the year, from $305,000 in June 2023 to $327,500 last month. WRA says one factor driving this increase was the first decline in new listings in eight months, as new listings were 10.5% lower last month than in June 2023.

“Rising home prices are part of the problem, but the real key to significant improvement in affordability is much lower mortgage rates,” WRA President and CEO Tom Larson said in the report. “Currently the 30-year fixed-rate is more than twice its pre-pandemic level.”

The report notes the statewide median family income is estimated to have increased by about 1% over the 12-month period ending in June, but that was “more than offset by the growth in home prices and the modest increase in mortgage rates” over the same period.

Meanwhile, home sales in June also declined 10.5% over the year, from 7,225 to 6,465.

WRA Board Chair Mary Jo Bowe said the drop in home sales was “disappointing,” as June is typically the peak month for sales.

“Hopefully the unexpected drop in new listings is an aberration, and we’ll see new listings bounce back in July, which will help grow home sales,” she said.

Still, report authors note home sales growth so far this year is “solid,” as sales increased 6.9% compared to the first six months of 2023.

See the release and the report.

— U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has introduced a bill that would require hospital systems that are closing to notify federal health officials and create a “mitigation plan” to ensure continued access to care.

She announced the Hospital Stability and Health Services, or HSHS Act yesterday. It comes after Hospital Sisters Health System — also known as HSHS — shut down hospitals in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls this year along with clinics in the region.

Baldwin, D-Madison, emphasizes rural health care access challenges in her release.

“That’s why when hospitals like HSHS close with little to no notice for their patients, Wisconsinites are left high and dry and with no options to find the sometimes lifesaving care they need,” she said in a statement. “If a big hospital is going to shut down in one of our communities, they should help ensure patients don’t slip through the cracks when they are gone.”

Under the legislation, hospitals that are closing or ending service would need to notify the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at least 90 days earlier. During this period, the hospitals would have to keep providing “essential services” unless doing so would be dangerous to patients or its employees, the release shows.

If HHS finds the closure would reduce care access, the hospital would be required to submit a plan to the agency outlining how it would maintain essential services in the community through local partnerships.

The mitigation plan would be subject to public comment and the agency would work with the closing hospital to “develop an alternative plan should the original proposal be insufficient,” according to the release.

Gov. Tony Evers yesterday announced his support for the legislation, saying it “will go a long way in making sure there is transparency and that folks can find and have access to the care they need if and when a hospital announces a closure.”

See the bill text and the release.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

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