SSM Announces $59 Million Investment in Local Hospitals

By Mary Jo Feldstein and Mark Schlinkmann, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Feb. 13–SSM Health Care-St. Louis announced a $59 million capital improvement plan on Tuesday, which the area’s second-largest hospital system described as “a major step to improve patient care, enhance services and reinforce competitive strength.”

Most of the money will be spent at two SSM hospitals — St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles and St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights.

St. Joseph will see a new intensive-care unit and an expanded emergency room as part of its $27.3 million expansion.

The changes, which include creating more private rooms, will be carried out over the next three years, said Sherlyn Hailstone, president of St. Joseph. She will move to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital March 2 and be replaced by Gaspare Calvaruso, who has been a vice president at Memorial Hospital in Belleville.

For St. Joseph, the plan calls for less investment than detailed earlier.

Hailstone said significant additional work is expected in later years but St. Joseph and SSM decided against putting up a $150 million tower building, which city and hospital officials had talked about last year.

St. Charles Mayor Patti York called the St. Joseph plan “exciting” and said she wasn’t disappointed that the high-rise building idea has been dropped.

She said she and other city officials had succeeded in their main goal: keeping the hospital in the city’s core area.

“That’s the biggest part of all of this, for sure,” she said.

The initial three-year plan for St. Joseph also includes a new nursing division and updated heating, cooling, electrical and plumbing systems in two major wings.

St. Mary’s will use its $20 million for new technology and facility renovations, including an expanded emergency department, more private rooms and a new outpatient imaging facility.

This is a major statement to the community and the patients and the medical staff, said St. Mary’s President Bill Jennings.

St. Mary’s said moving outpatient CT scans to the new imaging facility will allow the hospital to free up space for “a much-needed expansion” of its emergency department. The department now sees more than 40,000 patients a year, making it among the busiest in the region.

Jennings said the expanded emergency room will decrease patient wait times and improve patient satisfaction.

Other improvements at St. Mary’s will include converting semiprivate rooms on its second- and third-floors to private rooms as well as adding a CT scanner, replacement roofs and air-handling systems. The hospital will add an Advanced Digestive Disease Center, expanded obstetrics and updated cardiac catherization labs.

The digestive disease center will build on St. Mary’s current gastroenterology department, adding new staff and equipment in endoscopy.

Two other SSM hospitals will also receive additional funding. SSM DePaul Health Center will receive $6.7 million to add inpatient beds. SSM St. Joseph Hospital West will receive $5 million for a new cardiac catherization laboratory and cancer center.

mjfeldstein@post-dispatch.com — 314-340-8209

mschlinkmann@post-dispatch.com

636-255-7203

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