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News + Press - Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital
Exempla Healthcare News, including Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center, Exempla Lutheran Medical Center, Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital

• Patient Load Strains Denver ERs
  Patient load strains Denver ERs Two hospitals' move to Aurora pressures remaining facilities By Myung Oak Kim Tuesday, April 8, 2008 Denver hospitals are seeing more emergency room patients since University of Colorado Hospital and The Children's Hospital moved to Aurora last year. Both hospitals, which are now at the Anschutz Medical Campus near I-225 and Colfax, handled thousands of ER patients a year when they were in Denver. They've also seen more patients at the new location. In Denver, hospital administrators say they prepared for the change. Despite increases in ER visits, patients shouldn't be waiting longer for services, they said. However, observers of local health care say the loss of the two ERs puts more pressure on the remaining emergency rooms in Denver. An independent study is being prepared to measure the impacts, both on emergency rooms and other hospital services. University of Colorado Hospital relocated in June, and The Children's Hospital moved in September. The impact has been significant at Rose Medical Center on Ninth Avenue near Colorado Boulevard, a former neighbor of University of Colorado Hospital. ER visits have jumped 20 percent, officials report. Emergency rooms at Denver Health and Exempla St. Joseph Hospital have seen more modest increases - five percent each. For Denver Health, at Eighth Avenue and Bannock Street, that translates into an average of about 400 more patients a month at its emergency room and urgent care clinics since last fall, said spokeswoman Dee Martinez. Visits for pediatric urgent care rose 15 percent during that time, she said. The safety-net hospital said it worked hard to increase capacity by adding beds and expanding adult urgent care facilities. The facility also is building a larger new emergency department for children and adults. 'Considerable pressure'"Before the new beds opened, there was considerable pressure on hospital capacity, and the emergency department was often forced to divert ambulances to other facilities," Martinez said. "This has improved somewhat, but the emergency service continues to be very busy." Saint Joseph, at Franklin Street and 18th Avenue, saw an average of just over 200 more patients a month in the ER, said Bruce Adams, emergency department physician medical director. Adams anticipated higher demand and increased staffing and changed procedures to move patients through the hospital more quickly. He said the change hasn't caused problems, and he's already planning for higher patient loads when St. Anthony Central moves to Lakewood in a couple of years. Rose physicians also prepared for the change. Don Lefkowits, medical director of the emergency department, said the hospital renovated its emergency room and added capacity to the intensive care unit. Mayor formed panel The full impact of the hospital relocations have not been studied yet by local organizations. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper formed a panel to analyze the issue. Katherine Archuleta, the mayor's senior adviser on policy and initiatives, said the group is working on a survey to assess long-term and short-term impacts, but the survey hasn't been distributed yet. Ed Kahn is a lawyer at the Colorado Center on Law & Policy, which advocates for better health care, among other issues. He said the decline in emergency rooms in Denver is troubling because the city already faced capacity problems before the two hospitals moved to Aurora. "Having fewer emergency- room beds only increases the pressure on the smaller number that are left," he said. The change means longer waits, and patients "may not be able to go to the nearest emergency room because it may already be full," he said. kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361 Average monthly rise Total annual Hospital in visits after move ER visits Denver Health Medical Center 400 44,000 Presbyterian/ St. Luke's Medical Center 120 13,000 St. Joseph Hospital 200 48,000 Rose Medical Center 20 percent* n/a © Rocky Mountain News
• Saint Joseph Expansion Moves Ahead
  Friday, April 11, 2008 Saint Joseph expansion moves aheadDenver Business Journal - by Bob Mook Denver Busines Journal Kathleen Lavine | Business Journal Sister Melissa Camardo, director of Workforce, Spirituality & Sponsorship Mission Services at St. Joseph’s Hospital, waves at a friend on the sixth floor. View Larger Despite a lawsuit that potentially could set back or scale down the expansion of Denver's Saint Joseph Hospital, the hospital's CEO said the ambitious in-fill project is proceeding as planned -- with a demolition crew already tearing down the former Children's Hospital site where the new site will be located. Robert Minkin, CEO of Saint Joseph Hospital, said the institution is lining up architects and contractors for the planned expansion -- a project once estimated to cost $1 billion. Once the first phase is completed, the new hospital will have 400 beds in individual suites, compared with 390 beds, with some shared rooms, in the old building. But the updated facility will have capacity to grow to 600 beds. However, the overall size and scope of the expansion may depend on what happens in a legal dispute between Saint Joseph's owner, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, and the Exempla Healthcare system, which the Sisters of Charity co-sponsor. Exempla has sued to block a deal that would make the Sisters of Charity the sole owners of Exempla-run hospitals, including Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette. The Sisters of Charity said it's buying the hospitals in part to get the collateral needed to fund renewal efforts, such as the expansion at Saint Joseph Hospital. But Minkin said the expansion will happen regardless of how the litigation settles. "I'm here to tell you [the lawsuits] won't in any way affect the acquisition of the Children's Hospital site," Minkin said. If the Sisters of Charity opt to get out of the Denver market -- leaving Exempla to fund the expansion by itself -- the expansion may occur at a slower pace, Minkin said. But if the Sisters of Charity prevail in the legal battle and take control of all Exempla-managed hospitals, the project will occur more rapidly since the Catholic health system has "deeper pockets," Minkin said. The expansion is set to break ground in spring 2009. All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.
• Patients and Families Consider Palliative Care
  denver and the west Patients and families consider palliative care Terminal patients and their families are increasingly weighing the merits of intense medical intervention. By Katy Human The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 03/25/2008 12:35:59 AM MDT 83-year-old cancer patient Alex Silva, at Exempla St. Joseph Hospital in Denver, is visited by medical social worker Eileen Warthen on Thursday afternoon. The real art of palliative care is putting patient and family right in the center, said Dan Johnson, a Kaiser Permanente Colorado doctor and an expert on end-of-life care. (Nathan W. Armes, Special to The Denver Post)As a medical student working the late shift at a Denver hospital, Dan Johnson watched a woman come into the emergency room with emphysema so serious, she was hustled onto a breathing machine. It was her third emergency visit in as many months. "Everyone knew her already," Johnson said. As a young doctor in training, Johnson's job was just to hold the woman's hand. Still, the next day, she thanked him and told him, he said, that she was getting tired of struggling to breathe. After her family arrived and a psychological exam showed she was not depressed, she removed herself from oxygen, took some medicine to relieve her discomfort and died. "There are times when advanced medical treatments don't make sense," said Johnson, a Kaiser Permanente Colorado doctor working today as a palliative-care expert — focusing on coordinated efforts to relieve the pain, symptoms and stress of terminal illnesses. In 2006, palliative care was recognized as a subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties, and today, at least eight Denver-area hospitals have palliative-care experts. About 30 percent of all hospitals and 70 percent of large hospitals nationally offer palliative care, said Diane Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Studies show that palliative care is medically and economically efficient. A Kaiser-led clinical trial in Denver, Portland and San Francisco found that palliative-care patients were more satisfied with their treatment and, over six months, spent nearly $5,000 less than "usual care" patients. There was no difference in survival rates, according to the study, which appeared this month in the Journal of Palliative Medicine. "This is one of the few examples in health care of doing well by doing good," Mount Sinai's Meier said. At Exempla St. Joseph Hospital in Denver, where Johnson practices, he collaborates with nurses, palliative_08 -- Patient Alex Silva, 83, holds the hand of palliative care specialist Dr. Kathleen McGrady, MD. (SPECIAL TO THE DENVER POST | Nathan W. Armes)chaplains and social workers to help patients and families decide when intense medical intervention makes sense and when it does not. "Our tea