A Place for Families
Hospital's new patient tower to include state-of-the-art women's and children's units

THE WOODBERRY FAMILY Dad Steve is the assistant men’s basketball coach for Missouri State University, while 11-month-old Sherron and 5-year-old Shaylen keep mom Bianca busy at home. Sherron and Shaylen are patients of St. John’s pediatrician Elizabeth Andrews, M.D.

Construction for the new face of St. John’s Hospital – the Patient Tower – is slated for completion by the end of the year. The tower will add 110 beds to the hospital, bringing it to the 866-bed total for which it is licensed.

Twelve nursing units will eventually be located in the new tower, including state-of-the-art, women’s and children’s units in 150,000 square feet on the fifth and sixth floors that will feature all-private maternity suites, a new 42-bed single-family neonatal intensive care unit and a new 30-bed newborn nursery. The new pediatrics unit will gain seven beds for a total of 31 and the new pediatric intensive care unit will gain four beds for a total of 12.

New to St. John’s with the project will be a 12-bed antepartum unit, which will offer intensive care for high-risk and/or long-term maternity patients, paving the way for a new OB/GYN hospitalist (hospital-based physicians who act as a patient’s physician) program, which will provide 24/7 in-house OB/GYN coverage to the hospital. A similar hospitalist program is in place for the pediatrics floor.

A 10-bedroom, 8,000-square-foot Ronald McDonald House is planned for the sixth floor, giving parents of sick children and partners of high-risk maternity patients a home away from home at the hospital. The new pediatrics units will be housed on the same wing.

Construction will begin in early 2008, after the gynecology unit relocates from the hospital’s West Pavilion – the future home of the new NICU – to its new location in the Patient Tower. The newborn nursery and postpartum unit will follow.

“We’re working with these units on a complete relocation and construction timeline that will work best for patients and staff,” says Bob Norton, director of facilities for St. John’s.

A separate entrance for the new women’s and children’s units will be located where the hospital’s temporary main entrance is located currently. The separate entrance will provide both convenience and less-clinical welcome for pediatric patients.

The entire project should be complete by 2010, Norton says.
“All of these new units and services are being designed with the woman – and family – in mind,” says Susanne Miller, R.N., vice president of women’s and children’s services for St. John’s.

Patient volume increases

The number of births at St. John’s Hospital has increased steadily every year. In 2006, 2,665 babies were born at St. John’s. At the same time, the number of days the sickest and most premature babies spend in the NICU has increased dramatically, due to the addition of the maternal-fetal medicine and pediatric surgery programs over the last few years.

St. John’s recorded 7,017 patient days in the NICU in 2006, a more than 250 percent increase over 1989 figures, the earliest available since the unit opened in 1983.

“We’re able to keep these high-risk babies here now rather than send them to Kansas City or St. Louis for care,” says Leann Rens, R.N., NICU nursing director.

The current NICU accommodates 24 special-care bassinets. The new 42-bed NICU will utilize an emerging model of care with the single-family rooms. Each baby will be housed in a private room with a bed and comfortable chairs, encouraging parents to be at their baby’s bedside as much as possible.
Most procedures and equipment can be brought directly to the babies, decreasing the need to move them. Twins and other multiples can be kept in the same room.

“The new unit will give our staff increased space to deliver the specialized care these babies need. Most importantly, the new NICU will increase the space allocated for families. That will improve and increase the opportunities for family members to participate in newborn care and allow parents 24-hour access to their baby,” says Melinda Slack, M.D., neonatologist and NICU medical director.

The new newborn nursery will feature a lounge for parents and babies. The all-private suites in the new maternity/postpartum unit are designed to encourage “rooming in” – keeping the newborn in the mother’s room.

Home Away From Home:
The Ronald McDonald House

The Ronald McDonald House of the Ozarks, located on east Primrose, has offered a special “home away from home” for Ozarks families since 1988.

To extend the care and support of Ronald McDonald House to families right inside St. John’s Hospital, St. John’s and Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ozarks will open a house on the sixth floor of St. John’s by 2010.

“We are so excited about this new Ronald House,” says Bonnie Keller, president and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ozarks. “We see this as an opportunity for us, with St. John’s, to bring the comforts of home to families who feel they can’t leave the hospital during critical times. We want families to see this new house as a way for them to feel like they went home for a while, even though they remain just steps away from their child's hospital bedside. The house will also be available to those who may or may not need to stay overnight, but need private time.”

The new house will include a living room with a TV and reading materials, educational programs, a quiet room for private conversation and phone calls, a fully equipped kitchen, breast pumps, showers, 10 bedrooms and laundry facilities.

The project has been a decade-long labor of love for Keller and Susanne Miller, R.N., St. John’s vice president of women’s and children’s services.

“We’ve been working on this for about 10 years,” Miller says. “Because St. John’s is undergoing a major renovation during the next few years, we thought this was a perfect time to build a Ronald McDonald House inside St. John’s.”

St. John’s and the Ronald McDonald House have had a collaborative relationship for several years, says Mike Peters, vice president of public affairs and St. John’s Foundation for Community Health.
“St. John’s has been supportive of Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ozarks for quite some time, Peters says. “We are looking forward to expanding our relationship with this new Ronald McDonald House. This will be a great benefit for families of sick children at St. John’s.”

Guests of the Ronald McDonald House will include not only families of sick children, but husbands of high-risk maternity patients as well.

The Ronald McDonald House will be jointly operated by St. John’s and Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Ozarks. Staffing will include a house manager, an associate house manager, overnight and weekend staff, and volunteers. The house will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Currently, St. John’s Hospitality House offers basic lodging for patients from out of town who are being admitted to the hospital very early the next morning and family members of patients, such as parents of babies in the NICU or children on the pediatrics floor, who live out of town. The rooms are not, however, limited to families of children. St. John’s Hospitality House is often at capacity.