Mercy wows ACH committee

By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK
Register Reporter
On Friday, members of the Allen County Hospital Facilities committee toured Mercy Health Center in Fort Scott, population 8,500.
Like Allen County, Fort Scott “hired a consultant to come in and evaluate the old hospital,” said Mary Ann Arnott, committee chair. “The cost of a remodel was somewhat less than new but they felt they would save enough on utilities and repairs” over time “to make up the difference.”
Cost of the new hospital was $37 million, paid for through $1 million raised by the hospital foundation. “The rest was paid for by the Catholic Church,” Arnott said. The hospital is owned by Sisters of Mercy and the Wichita Diocese.
That left Fort Scott free and clear with no payments due, Arnott said, which allows them to do “a lot of charitable work.” Mercy also receives rent from Cigna Insurance, located on the 75 acre campus.
Mercy incorporates an urgent care center that runs after office hours for people who do not need emergency room services, but cannot wait over the course of an evening or weekend to see their primary care physician.
“Urgent care starts at 3:30 p.m.,” on weekdays and is open weekends so as not to conflict with traditional local providers, Arnott said.
“Urgent care is profitable for both the hospital and another private urgent care business in town,” Arnott said.  
The hospital has 66 beds and 333 employees, 96 of whom are registered nurses. It includes a sleep study room and a room set up for palliative care for terminal patients. The palliative care room has “an adjoining room for family members to stay in,” Arnott noted.
The hospital also runs a 12 bed rehabilitation unit for patients requiring ongoing care after a stroke or car accident, Arnott said.
Mercy also has a “very busy fitness center used by the public,” Arnott said. Membership runs $30 per month for an individual and about $40 a month for a family, she noted. 
“Their usual (hospital) census is 30 to 40” beds, Arnott said. Typical length of stay is 2.87 days. Allen County typically fills 13 of its 25 beds daily for an average length of stay of 3.7 days, said ACH CEO Joyce Heismeyer.

AT MERCY, doctors include an orthopedic and two general surgeons, an obstetrician and family practice doctors. Some of the physicians have their regular offices in the hospital.  
Allen County has “104 active medical staff featuring primary care physicians and specialists in general surgery, radiology and urology,” according to its Web site. That number includes 10 doctors, more than 50 affiliates and 50 to 60 registered nurses, Heismeyer said. Total employee number is 165.
Some systems are the same at both facilities. ACH and Mercy both feature equal power magnetic resonance imaging and digital archiving of imagery. Both hospitals are filmless except for mammography at ACH. Mercy has a 16 slice computed tomography scan while ACH’s is 4 slice.
Mercy has already switched to paperless computer records, a change that cost about $3-$5 million, Arnott said they were told. Each patient room has a computer so that nurses complete records work there rather than at a nurses’ station. Medications are checked through an electronic wrist band system.

STAFF at Mercy who conducted the tour told the group they would recommend a new hospital have all private rooms — its are not — for both patient satisfaction and infection control. They also recommend terrazzo floors rather than carpet.  
Mercy CEO Reta Baker said what she liked most about the new hospital was its layout — a patient can receive all their services without stepping into a public hallway. The hospital is shaped like an H, Arnott said, with one hall designated public and one for patients.
Mary Kay Heard, Barbara Culbertson, Terry Sparks, Gary McIntosh and Mary Ann Arnott went on the tour. It was the seventh the group has conducted. Three each remodeled and newly constructed hospitals in the region have been looked at, along with ACH.
The objective of the tours is to “see what we’re surrounded with and what’s state of the art. We’re just kind of on a listening journey in this,” Arnott said.
Heismeyer also noted the tours have not been so much to compare facilities as to see what aspects Allen County might like to incorporate when it remodels or rebuilds.