Strong Provider Network Delivers Good Medicine
Published Feb 11, 2009
St. Mary’s Health System includes a 490-bed hospital.
In Southwest Indiana, two nonprofit hospital systems lead the provider market and are investing in the latest technologies to improve the quality of care.
Deaconess Health System and St. Mary’s Health System and Medical Center trace their operations back decades and have expanded their reach in recent years to serve the various needs of patients.
St. Mary’s operates a 490-bed, acute-care hospital, long-term-care center, women’s and children’s hospital and home-health agency. At its hospital in Evansville, St. Mary’s provides a full spectrum of inpatient services, including trauma care, cardiology, orthopedics and neonatology.
St. Mary’s also has focused on outpatient care with facilities that serve ambulatory surgery, oncology and physician-office needs. More than 12,000 procedures are performed each year at the outpatient surgery sites.
In 2001, St. Mary’s created a separate hospital for women and children connected to its main hospital. This unit focuses on labor, pediatrics neonatal intensive care and obstetrics, all housed in specialized departments.
The provider plans to grow its services by adding physicians and investing in technology and facilities that will increase efficiency and effectiveness.
“Our patients expect clinical quality, to be treated like a fellow human being and for us to respect their time, resources and intelligence,” says President and CEO Tim Flesch.
Satisfaction scores are improving and clinical quality meets or exceeds regional and national benchmarks.
Deaconess Health System has emerged as a full-service provider, with five hospitals, a hospital for women and infants, a behavioral health hospital and a freestanding cancer center.
Quality is stressed at the teaching hospital, earning Deaconess a Solucient Top 100 Hospitals award for cardiac and orthopedic services.
In addition to its 365-bed main hospital, Deaconess bolstered its 14 ambulatory-care sites with a merger with Welborn Clinic, a multi-specialty physician group with more than 100 doctors. The merger brought Welborn’s 30 medical and surgical specialty physicians under a hospital, providing continuous care.
Deaconess and Welborn had little overlap so the combined operator touches most of the region’s communities, including Newburgh and Reo.
Keeping patients’ interests in mind, the merger allows for nearly 90 practices to come under an integrated health-care system, says Dr. David D. Christeson, the former Welborn Clinic CEO who is now chief physician administrative officer of Deaconess Clinic.
Importantly, the merger allows the two to operate on a unified technology system. Patients from one provider will be able to have their medical records accessed by physicians at a separate location. Much of the technology upgrade is taking place this year and next.
Story by Roy Moore
Photo by Brian McCord
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