Hospital OKs $84 million center

One of the biggest construction projects in the history of Cape Girardeau will commence this spring when Saint Francis Medical Center begins work on an $84 million center for cancer and heart disease.

The 180,000-square-foot facility will provide focused care for the two biggest killers of Missourians, hospital officials said. Improvements to care promised for the combined Heart Hospital and Cancer Institute include more cardiac catheterization labs to provide quick relief to heart attack victims and additional linear accelerators to expand radiation treatments for cancer.

Steven Bjelich

The Saint Francis Healthcare System Board of Directors approved the plans for the facility Thursday. The hospital will raise the money for the institute through a bond issue and by drawing on hospital reserves, president and chief executive officer Steven Bjelich said.

Two top doctors at Saint Francis promised the consolidated facility will enhance their relationship with patients. Many of the services that will be housed in the facility are scattered throughout the existing hospital and at off-campus sites such as Doctors Park.

Dr. Stanley Sides

"Communication will be better," said Dr. Stanley Sides, chief of medical oncology at Saint Francis. "It is easier to walk around the corner instead of [patients] dropping what they are doing to see you or you dropping what you are doing to see them."

Staff who can specialize in caring for heart patients and focus on their needs will be able "generate a level of expertise over and above the level of expertise available in a general hospital setting," said Dr. Edward Bender, chief of cardiac surgery.

Harry Rediger

Cape Girardeau's two hospitals are the biggest employers in the county, each with more than 2,000 full- and part-time workers. The new Saint Francis facility, expected to open by fall 2011, will provide about 70 new hospital jobs and, hospital leaders said, attract more top medical professionals to practice in the area. The final decision to move ahead with the plans followed a decision in October to draw up specifics for the institute and estimate the cost, officials said.

"We have been dreaming about this for a long time," said Harry Rediger, immediate past chairman of the Saint Francis board. "We've had it on the plans and strategic plans for a long time. It kind of came to the forefront at our strategic planning retreat. There is no better time than now."

Saint Francis will add 10 cardiac intensive-care unit beds to its current 258 beds for inpatients as part of the new center, Bjelich said. In addition, all of the semiprivate rooms in the hospital will be converted to private rooms as the hospital seeks to make patients more comfortable.

A new chemotherapy center will provide private rooms for patients and family members during treatment rather than place them in a room where several people are being treated simultaneously, Sides said.

Dr. Edward Bender

The consolidation will give patients one stop for their cancer treatment, said Barbara Thompson, vice president for marketing and public relations. "Right now, chemotherapy is being delivered at three different sites."

Other highlights of the new Heart Hospital and Cancer Institute include:

Barbara Thompson

• Room for four cardiac catheterization labs. The hospital operates two such labs now and in late January won approval from the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee to acquire a third at a cost of $2.2 million. Cardiac catheterization is the state-of-the-art treatment for heart attacks, and quick treatment in a catheterization lab is vital to saving lives, numerous medical studies have shown.
• Room for three linear accelerators for cancer radiation treatment. The hospital operates one linear accelerator now and plans to install a second one immediately as the new facility opens. Radiation treatment of cancer is advancing rapidly, Sides said. As machines are improved, he added, they are better able to focus on tumors and minimize damage to healthy tissue.
• A design that used analysis of the paths followed by patients from admission to treatment to recovery to minimize time spent moving from one location to another and allow a rapid response to the patients' requirements.

"This whole area was designed with the patient in mind and the patient-physician relationship," Bjelich said. "The flow of patients, the proximity of services, the most convenient locations for patients, inpatients and outpatients, and family areas. It was designed with those individuals in mind so they have the optimal environment to deliver the best possible care."

When completed, there will be few treatment options for cancer and heart patients that will not be available in Cape Girardeau. That will save patients the expense and stress of traveling to large cities like St. Louis or Memphis for routine tests such as blood work, Sides said.

"We will attempt to be a regional resource in the full gamut of cancer treatment," he said. "But there will always be people who will need to be sent to St. Louis for bone marrow transplants, for instance."

A state-of-the-art facility can attract top doctors, Bender said. "From a professional standpoint, a cardiac surgeon is much happier here. There isn't that cutthroat big-city competition trying to take over your share of business come hell or high water. There are too many sick patients per cardiologist to have that concern."

The $84 million price tag and the size of the project exceed any other investments the hospital has made in recent years, Bjelich said. "It to me is probably the most exciting project in the history of Saint Francis, second only to the board and the sisters' decision to move the hospital from Good Hope Street to this location."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126