East Tennessee hospitals constantly upgrading facilities
Photo by Clay Owen
Allen Walker, left, and Dan Hix join about 100 employees and family members as they cross the Henley Street Bridge in the Walk of Mercy from Baptist to St. Mary's Hospital.
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The end of an era made hospital-news headlines last year.
The January 2008 merger of Baptist Health Systems and St. Mary's Health System to form the new Mercy Health Partners meant Baptist Hospital of East Tennessee became solely an outpatient facility. By August, inpatient care had been transferred to St. Mary's Medical Center at Oak Hill in North Knoxville.
The new Mercy system operates seven acute-care hospitals, including three in Knoxville, and various other health facilities.
Mercy spent $1.2 million to transfer the downtown hospital's open-heart surgery program to Baptist Hospital West in Turkey Creek, initially against the wishes of Covenant Health and University Health Systems, which also operate Knoxville hospitals where open-heart surgery is done. Baptist West saw its first open-heart surgery in November.
The merger also led Mercy to launch regional Mercy Sleep Centers and Mercy Cancer Services, and it invested $21 million to upgrade imaging equipment systemwide.
Dr. Michael Fields, an OB/GYN surgeon at St. Mary's, took advantage of new technology in August when he performed the world's first hysterectomy using a robotic laser arm.
Cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Thomas Pollard used the da Vinci robot, which all local hospital systems now use, to perform the area's first robot-assisted transmyocardial revascularization, a procedure to relieve angina caused by heart disease. He has since performed robot-assisted cardiac bypass surgery. Meanwhile, Baptist West became Tennessee's only location for a clinical trial of a new device to warn of impending heart attacks.
Covenant-owned Parkwest Medical Center began work on a new two-room Spine/Brain Lab for neurological procedures. It's expected to open this spring. The hospital also began offering the PillCam, a swallowable camera that can replace more invasive gastrointestinal diagnostic procedures in some cases.
Sister hospital Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center became the first hospital in the state to use the InReach "Super Dimension" system, which uses GPS-like technology to diagnose and treat cancer and lung disease in its early stages.
In the fall, Fort Sanders broke ground on a $78 million Advanced Center for Ambulatory Care featuring a multispecialty surgery center, physician office space and outpatient services.
University of Tennessee Medical Center broke ground in July on its $26 million Heart Hospital, slated to open in 2010. The new tower will increase UTMC's endoscopy labs from 8 to 15 and the cardiovascular intensive care unit beds from 18 to 24. Its top two floors are shelled-in space that could later hold 32 more beds, and the tower is built in such a way that four more floors could be added in the future.
UTMC also established the Atrial Fibrillation Center, which evaluates, manages and provides treatment for patients with atrial fibrillation, the most common type of irregular heartbeat. Atrial fibrillation increases the risk of stroke and is a major contributor to congestive heart failure, but it can be treated and even cured.
East Tennessee Children's Hospital added two state-of-the-art pediatric surgery suites, as well as a new sedation suite. Specialized physicians and nurses use sedation to help babies and children tolerate procedures that they otherwise could not have at all or would have to travel elsewhere to get.
Kristi L. Nelson may be reached at 865-342-6434.
© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel
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