Mercy looks to future with ortho hospital

Last edited 8:25 a.m., Sept. 12, 2013

The Sisters of Mercy have invested a hefty chunk of change in creating a hotel-like specialty hospital and clinic at the southern edge of town. On Aug. 12, the Mercy Orthopedic Hospital clinic opened to patients, and on Sept. 16, elective surgeries are scheduled to begin.

Workers are quietly putting the finishing touches on the $115 million, 200,000-square-foot hospital, staging plants and unloading new equipment off pallets.

The 48-bed hospital comes on line in the same year the Mercy system received national attention in the form of a Time magazine article that put the microscope on hospital profits. Time reported Mercy Hospital Springfield’s 2011 profits were $116 million, after correcting a higher figure initially published in March.

Hospital officials say the expense is justified because they are investing in the current and future needs of the area, which includes caring for southwest Missouri’s portion of the 76 million baby boomers living in the U.S. and meeting demand for dedicated services.

Orthopedist Dr. Richard Seagrave said a team of Mercy physicians and staff contributed to the design and features of the new hospital, which sits a half-mile across from a $27 million Mercy rehabilitation facility that’s expected to open next year.

Seagrave, who is transitioning into his own clinic space at the hospital, beams when he talks about the efficiencies the 10 new surgery rooms will create when it comes to the total knee replacements and hip replacements he commonly performs.

“The need really arose out of the fact that with the main hospital, we have just grown so much as far as patient loads. We need more (operating rooms), and, particularly after the opening of the new (emergency room), we needed more clinic space for orthopedics, and we needed more rooms. So, all three of those things were necessary and Mercy set about trying to meet that need,” Seagrave said.

By isolating the needs of orthopedic patients, he said the doctors believed it would be easier to handle increasing workloads, as well as be more beneficial to patients.

“Elective orthopedic patients are different in that they are not sick, generally, but they are broken or their parts have worn out,” Seagrave said, adding their needs aren’t the same as those who suffer from trauma or need hospitalization for other reasons.

“Orthopedics is very equipment heavy, so we thought if we are carved out by ourselves, it would be a little slicker as far as going from one case to the next.”

Dave Globig, Mercy Springfield’s vice president of operations, said the design efficiencies of the ortho hospital are applicable to the system’s hospital rebuild in Joplin, as well as other future projects.

“We’ve operated a lot of lean changes within the clinic (such as) getting patients in and out with the fewest steps as possible,” he said.

At the main Springfield campus, for example, patients going from the preoperative area to the surgery area to the postanesthesia care unit have to travel a wider loop across multiple levels. In the new facility, those areas are adjacent to one another on the same floor.

“That’s difficult to do in a larger facility or older building that wasn’t designed that way. Here, we’ve been able to create efficiencies with patient flow – in and out, all in one circle,” he said.

The new space is built for volume. Globig said more than 300 patients a day are expected to visit the clinic, and up to 1,200 people could walk through the doors each day once the facility is fully operational.

Unique features of the hospital include medication lock boxes in the walls of patient rooms that can be accessed by nurse identification badges. The boxes allow nurses easy access to patient-specific medication without sorting through other patients’ meds.

Also, rooms have fold-out couches for family members. The hospital was built with convenience in mind, and four nursing stations on each patient floor reflect the desire for quick access.

“Each nurse’s station takes care of six patients, versus one centralized nursing station taking care of an entire unit. That allows each nurse and care team to be closer to the patient and respond to their needs quicker,” Globig said. “Another example of a difference in a unit is carpet. Something so trivial reduces the sound, makes it quieter and allows the patients to sleep better at night.”

Seagrave described the facility as a “hospitel” – a cross between a hotel, spa and hospital.

“I think it embodies what we are trying to do here,” he said.

He said Mercy orthopedists are focused on results, patient experiences and efficiencies.

Globig said lessons learned in Joplin in 2011 are being carried forward. In reaction to the EF5 tornado that destroyed the city’s Mercy hospital, the Springfield orthopedic facility has wind-rated windows in place, as well as window-guard doors that can be pulled over the inside of windows in case of a tornado.

“This facility was really one of the prototypes for Mercy in how we will build our hospitals going forward,” Globig said. “You are going to see a lot of the same characteristics and features in the Joplin facility, just on a much larger scale.”

Noteworthy facts of the new facility include: The hospital was constructed with 11,535 cubic yards of concrete; the four-story facility contains 58 miles of conduit; it features a car donated by Ozarks Technical Community College and a bath tub for patients to practice their mobility before leaving the hospital; and Mercy is staffing the new hospital with at least 250 workers, 200 of which are projected to be new positions.  

“This facility is designed, staffed and built to serve the orthopedic community here in southwest Missouri and beyond,” Globig said. “It is a destination.”

Mercy spokeswoman Sonya Kullmann reported that Mercy Springfield Communities actually posted a fiscal 2011 operating margin of $81 million.