2. Efficient Facilities

St. John’s vision of increasing efficiency while improving quality of care has moved a step farther in 2005 with the opening of the hospital’s new emergency trauma center/outpatient diagnostic center and St. John’s Clinic–Nixa, the first multidisciplinary medical clinic in Christian County.

In 2003, St. John’s opened the new surgery center at the corner of National and Seminole. In addition to providing more than 200,000 square feet of state-of-the-art physicians’ offices and outpatient surgery suites, the surgery center has improved patient flow and waiting time in the hospital surgery department. St. John’s Surgery Center focuses on scheduled outpatient surgeries, allowing the surgery department to focus on major and trauma surgeries.

Construction is under way for the expansion of St. John’s Sports Medicine and Physical Therapy facility on the hospital campus, as well as for the hospital's new inpatient tower. St. John’s Radiosurgery Center in St. John’s Cancer Center begins treating patients in August and more improvements are planned for the cancer center. These new facilities will improve access and convenience for patients and health care providers.

During this multi-year period of improvement, St. John’s is striving to make visiting the main campus as easy as possible. Shuttles to and from the parking lots and outlying campus facilities run on a regular schedule. Preferred parking is available for qualified patients. A loop road connecting the buildings on the main campus eases way-finding for patients and visitors, while friendly St. John’s Guest Services representatives stationed at the facilities’ entrances offer assistance to guests as they enter St. John’s facilities. These representatives provide transportation, maps and directions and can escort individuals to their destination as needed.

St. John’s Emergency Trauma Center

St. John’s Emergency Trauma and Outpatient Diagnostic Center is a 216,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility designed for 85,000 patients per year. The area’s only Level 1 Trauma Center for adults and children has 45 treatment rooms. Six are designated for critical care, such as motor vehicle accidents or heart attacks.

The facility is horizontally and vertically integrated with the main hospital, meaning all services within a discipline, such as cardiac care or labor and delivery, are housed on the same floor and related services are located close to each other, above and below, so patients can be transported faster. This provides rapid access to operating rooms, and the neurotrauma, surgical, and coronary intensive care units. The building also has four helicopter pads on the roof with direct elevator access to six critical-care rooms.

“The entire building that houses the emergency department, the imaging area and two of our ICUs was designed around providing a lot more convenient access to the types of services that patients need. We have the radiology department directly above the trauma center. We have a dedicated elevator that services the patient population so we can much more efficiently get trauma patients the imaging services they need and get them back into the trauma center for treatment, more quickly than we could before,” says Rob Brodhead, St. John’s Hospital president. “The ability to bring a helicopter in, land it on the roof and have a team ready to receive the patient and bring them down a dedicated elevator into a critical-care room provides a much more efficient and effective model in dealing with a patient who has been life-flighted in. This model speeds up care, which is critical for trauma patients,” Brodhead says.

St. John’s Clinic-Nixa

Because Christian County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the state, St. John’s felt it was important to bring primary and specialty care to the residents of that community, all in one state-of-the-art facility. St. John’s Clinic-Nixa opened in May at 940 W. Mount Vernon in Nixa. The three-story, 60,000 square-foot clinic is Nixa’s tallest structure and has the capability for expansion to 100,000 square feet. The clinic offers a wide array of specialties and services including urgent care, internal medicine, lab, pediatrics, physical therapy, cardiac rehab, obstetrics and gynecology, radiology, pharmacy with a drive-through window, optical shop and a coffee shop.

St. John’s Cancer Center

St. John’s Radiosurgery Center, offering the non-invasive CyberKnife, opens in August. The radiosurgery suite isn’t the only improvement in the works for the cancer center, however. Renovation and expansion of the center will allow for enhanced integration of services as St. John’s continues to lead the region’s efforts in cancer education and treatment. Plans include a park to honor and memorialize cancer patients and expansion of the current building.

St. John’s Clinic-Whiteside will be connected to the cancer center to allow St. John’s cancer and hematology physicians and patients immediate access to the cancer center. The larger space will allow for expanded breast cancer detection and treatment and additional radiation oncology equipment and services. The integrated cancer program will also include women’s oncology, health education and support services.

St. John’s Sports Medicine

St. John’s Sports Medicine facility, located at the corner of Fremont and Seminole, is being expanded to enhance provision of care within St. John’s Sports Medicine program and St. John’s Physical Therapy. The expanded facility will include larger rehabilitation and evaluation areas and the first Swim-ex pool in the region. Swim-ex provides water therapy in a smaller pool with built-in hydro jets and a pool treadmill that allows patients to begin non-weight-bearing rehab much sooner.

Inpatient Tower

In May, St. John’s closed the hospital’s main entrance to begin construction on the new Inpatient Tower, a 350,000 square-foot glass-front building connected to the existing hospital by a central atrium. The 200 spacious new patients rooms located on floors 2-6 will be a mix of private and semi-private. The first floor will include public meeting rooms, patient admitting and other customer-friendly services. Twelve nursing units will be located throughout the tower.

St. John’s Surgery Center

St. John’s Surgery Center, 1229 E. Seminole, is a 218,000 square-foot outpatient surgery center, physician office and medical specialty building.

Surgery Center patients are provided a one-stop approach to outpatient surgery, with all pre-admitting work done prior to surgery at the same location. The surgery center has eight operating rooms for orthopedic, eye and general outpatient surgeries. Operating rooms are equipped with fully integrated video surgical systems that capture digital video and displays on monitors to assist with procedures.

Medical specialty services located in the building include: a multi-disciplinary Spine Center; pain management; optometry and ophthalmology; orthopedics; MRI; plastic surgery; audiology; dermatology and ENT.