St. John?s moves endoscopy unit

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St. John's Health System is consolidating some of its endo-scopy services in a larger space.|ret||ret||tab|

St. John's is moving its endo-scopy unit from the Smith-Glynn-Callaway Medical Building at 3231 S. National to the Whiteside Medical Building at 2115 S. Fremont. Routine outpatient endoscopy services at St. John's Regional Health Center will move to the White-side facility, as well. |ret||ret||tab|

The new unit opens March 18. |ret||ret||tab|

While adults will access services at the consolidated endo-scopy unit, child patients will continue to undergo procedures at the hospital.|ret||ret||tab|

The new endoscopy unit is about 15,000 square feet and is located on the south side of the ground floor of Whiteside. The unit includes five procedure rooms, 20 patient rooms, a consulting area and a pre-admissions area.|ret||ret||tab|

"We're moving because the two units we have are maxed out on capacity," said Lynn Smith, the unit's director of special procedures. |ret||ret||tab|

"The demand for what we do far outweighs the capacity. The number of endoscopy procedures has risen in the last five to 10 years nationwide. That's because the technology is better and is less invasive," Smith added.|ret||ret||tab|

In endoscopy, a scope is placed inside the body allowing the doctors to see what is going on. |ret||ret||tab|

The endoscopy unit performs gastrointestinal and pulmonary endoscopies. Pulmon-ary endoscopies will continue to be done at the hospital.|ret||ret||tab|

"People come in for a multitude of reasons," Smith said, "They might have unrelieved heart burn, indigestion, a bleeding ulcer or have been recently diagnosed with cancer."|ret||ret||tab|

Smith said the new unit will enhance patient amenities, and "the patients will get more individualized attention at registration. We plan on developing a central scheduling and pre-admissions center. We'll go over the history of each patient with them, as well as what will happen while they're here. Each cubicle will have a courtesy phone."|ret||ret||tab|

St. John's eight gastroenterologists physicians who specialize in diseases and problems of the gastrointestinal tract will be located at Whiteside. They are Dr. Donald Nelson, Dr. Donald Mangum, Dr. Donald Thompson, Dr. Alex Hover, Dr. David Geier, Dr. Michael Woo-ten, Dr. Jesse Taylor and Dr. Roy Libel.|ret||ret||tab|

The new hours for the endo-scopy unit, beginning March 18, will be 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.[[In-content Ad]]