Mercy Hospital, Saint Francis to offer childhood GI service in Cape

Mercy Hospital in St. Louis is collaborating with Saint Francis Medical Center to offer a specialty pediatric gastroenterology service.

Pediatric gastroenterologist Jose Derdoy has begun seeing patients the first Monday of each month in Cape Girardeau. Joe Kahn, president of Mercy Hospital’s pediatric division, Mercy Kids, said Friday the collaboration marks the first such arrangement outside Mercy’s four-state network.

“Our primary guiding principle is that all care should be delivered as close to the child’s home as possible, so we try to do a lot of outreach,” he said. “This is a collaboration around the care of children. We do not have any official affiliation or signed contractual partnership or documentation like that at this point. It’s more of a collaboration where patients who are patients of Saint Francis can be served by specialists who are part of Mercy working together to provide that care in Southeast Missouri.”

Mercy established a telemedicine cart in Saint Francis Medical Center about two years ago, Kahn said.

“We hope that this is the first step in a more expansive outreach,” he said.

Liz Glastetter, service line director for maternal and child health services at Saint Francis, said the collaboration already has made a positive impact, and Derdoy’s schedule has included patients referred from as far away as Poplar Bluff, Caruthersville and Sikeston, Missouri.

“It’s good for Saint Francis to be able to offer this service,” she said. “It just allows us to provide services for our patients that otherwise they’d have to drive to St. Louis for.”

Derdoy is able to see about eight to 10 patients on days when he’s in the Cape Girardeau clinic.

Kahn said analogous clinics, such as one that sends specialists from Mercy’s Springfield, Missouri, hospital to see patients in Joplin, Missouri, have seen success in recent years.

“We’re interested to see what other services we could bring to the area through Mercy Kids,” Glastetter said. “Things that aren’t available through Saint Francis.”

Pediatric specialties, she said, are possibilities: fields such as neurology, genetics and psychiatry.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627

Pertinent address:

Saint Francis Medical Center, Cape Girardeau, Mo.