The Mercy system has opened a $115 million, 48-bed orthopedic facility in Springfield, Mo., that will provide general orthopedic treatments, total joint replacements and spine care. The Mercy Orthopedic Hospital Springfield is located about 7 miles from Mercy's main hospital campus.
According to Dave Globig, Mercy Springfield vice president of operations, Mercy built the facility to meet the demands of a growing senior population "whose knees and hips are wearing out and need to be replaced."
The orthopedic hospital will be part of a national Employers Centers of Excellence Network announced last month. An initiative of Walmart, Lowe's, other large companies and the Pacific Business Group on Health, the network enables employees of the large companies to have knee and hip replacement surgeries at four "centers of excellence" around the country — Mercy Springfield included — at no out-of-pocket cost to the employees. The employees pay no deductible, coinsurance or travel costs associated with their care.
Mercy said the orthopedic hospital is designed to enable clinicians to work more efficiently. The layout minimizes the distance that clinicians and patients must travel on campus, said Globig. Operating rooms are adjacent to one another so surgical teams can move efficiently from patient to patient; and distances between the front door, pre-op rooms, operating rooms and recovery rooms are short, Globig said. This "requires fewer steps for the physicians and nursing staff. That's fewer steps that a patient has to be transported. That's fewer steps that patients and families have to walk. All of those fewer steps add up and result in more efficient providers and happier patients," he said.
Globig said leaders at other facilities within the Chesterfield, Mo.-based Mercy are building or are considering erecting orthopedic facilities to meet the needs of aging populations. Mercy in Fort Smith, Ark., is constructing a $42 million, 24-bed orthopedic hospital that will open in a year.
Globig said that in Springfield, Mercy's main campus is at capacity and landlocked; and so leaders decided to branch out to this new campus. Mercy also is building a $28 million, 60-bed rehabilitation hospital on the new campus. It will open in April 2014.
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