HOSPITALS GROW WITH DEMAND FOR ADVANCED MEDICAL SERVICES

Cape Girardeau serves as a hub for many things in Southeast Missouri. It is a center for education, commerce, industrial growth and development and health care.

Cape Girardeau is the only major city between St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., to offer the advanced services of two hospitals. To meet the demands of being regional medical centers, hospitals have continued to expand.

Southeast Missouri Hospital has been expanding outwardly, constructing new buildings and finding new uses for older ones. The St. Francis Medical Center, which moved into its facilities in 1976, is rebuilding from within.

Both are striving to meet the ever-increasing needs of an entire population.

Perhaps the most obvious expansion of a hospital in Cape Girardeau is the construction of Southeast Missouri Hospital's Clinical Services Building.

The five-story new addition, immediately to the east of the main building, will house the LifeBeat staff and landing pad, emergency medical services, operating rooms, recovery rooms, radiology, the new Chest Pain Center, operating rooms, the Regional Heart Center program and neurosurgery facilities.

The first two floors and the top floor are scheduled to be completed in April. The rest will be done by the fall.

The Clinical Services Building is the main part the second of a three phase, five-year expansion project, which is scheduled for final completion in 1996.

The first phase involved infrastructure of the hospital -- heating, cooling, water and electric supply. A mechanical building was constructed at the north side of the main hospital building.

To accommodate for electrical needs, an electric substation was built and a water-storage facility was added soon after.

"Phase two is the most obvious and visible part of our expansion thus far," said Jim Wente, administrator of Southeast Missouri Hospital. "The addition of the Clinical Services Building was greatly needed because of the continued increased utilization of the type of hospital services which will be offered there."

Also planned in the second phase of the expansion will be a parking lot for attending physicians, nurses and emergency services personnel on the land to the east of the new building.

"The new parking lot for the doctors will free up parking near the main entrance for visitors and patients," said Wente. "We are always trying to address the needs of hospital users -- including trying to improve parking around the building."

The third phase of the expansion involves the remodeling and revision of areas of the hospital vacated by services which will be relocated in the Clinical Services Building.

Included will be a new lobby and cafeteria area.

"We are also contemplating and evaluation an expansion and relocation of all our physical rehabilitation services, including physical, occupational and speech therapy," said Wente.

On the other side of town, the St. Francis Medical Center, located in a building which was built in 1976, is remodeling from within and expanding into the community.

"Right now we're in the process of doing a community-wide heath care assessment, so we can tailor or programs to better meet the health needs of the people who live here," said John Fidler, president of the medical center. "We are committed to serve as a catalyst in addressing the health-access needs of the community."

Fidler said that too many people are utilizing emergency room services when a private physician would do.

"We are also spending too much money on last-ditch efforts too late in life," said Fidler. "We need to be focusing more on community outreach programs and preventative medicine.

"We are transforming the hospital from a center of illness to a center of health," he added.

Fidler said that as far as the St. Francis Medical Center is concerned, they are not lacking for space or facilities, but instead need to focus on the coordination and streamlining of existing facilities.

"Our facilities are in need of refurbishing, not expansion," said Fidler. "In the past year, we have renovated an area for patients awaiting surgery, so that they do not have to lay side by side with critical care patients.

"We also have recognized that there is a need for skilled nursing beds," he continued. "We have patients who don't need to be in intensive care, but need more attention than free-standing nursing homes can offer. So we have renovated a wing to that standard."

Nursing stations at the hospital are bedside, so that nurses can file reports or access patient data while in the room, thereby spending the maximum amount of time with the patient possible.

"We are putting in improved systems to enhance the quality and cost-effective nature of patient care," said Fidler. "In the end, both the patient and the attending nurse or physician are happier."

St. Francis has also gone from a pay-per-view cable system to an open cable system which airs heath programming to teach patients to better care for themselves.

The modern layout of the hospital allows for the orderly transfer of a patient from one area to another, whether they enter on their own or are brought in by ambulance.

"Our approach here is that health care itself is under construction," said Fidler. "We want to become more focused on health and wellness rather than treating illness.

"A hospital should be a place of health, rather than a center for illness," he said. "That in itself will greatly reduce the cost of health care."