JPS growth increases space, research and training
In the midst of a search for a new CEO, the JPS Health Network is continuing to make moves that will change the profile of the publically-funded health care network.
The JPS Health Network recently completed its move into the new Patient Care Pavilion, leaving behind the John Peter Smith Hospital, and the networkÂ’s governing body, the Tarrant County Hospital District, recently got the green light to purchase the vacant St. JosephÂ’s Hospital.
ItÂ’s been an eventful summer thus far for the health network, and now the staff and administration are looking forward to expanding services to fill the increased space and meet the growing needs of the community, according to officials with JPS.
The Patient Care Pavilion has more space for almost everything: operating suites, inpatient beds and emergency rooms. Tarrant CountyÂ’s population continues to grow faster than most metropolitan areas in the United States, and the local economy has held up well primarily because of the booming Barnett Shale, according to local economists.
Robert Earley, interim CEO and president of the JPS Health Network, said that with any growth comes the growth of populations who need the services that JPS can offer.
“When you bring more folks in because of Barnett Shale or because of economic development, you’re also going to have an increase in your needy population,” he said.
This increased population—whether seen in a homeless person, a victim of a traffic accident or a middle-income person between jobs with no health insurance—needed more space and services, and that lead to the new patient tower, he said.
Now, the new tower has opened up opportunities indirectly tied to patient care, such as expanding medical education and research, said Dr. Jay Haynes, chief medical officer.
For example, the new emergency and trauma center will be visited in September as part of the process of starting an emergency medicine residency program through the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Haynes said.
“We’re hoping to get the residents here in July ’09,” Haynes said, and the first class would hopefully be 10 to 12 new physicians.
Dr. Josephine Fowler, chief academic officer, said that starting an emergency medicine residency would be a boon to the area, since the nearest program is at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas.
“There’s not many in Texas,” she said.
Emergency isnÂ’t the only department that could see new residents; Fowler said that the system is looking at possibly adding a child psychiatry residency that could start in 2010 and adding more residency spots to obstetrics/gynecology and psychiatry.
Having physicians train at JPS not only helps bolster ties with local medical schools, like the UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth and UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Haynes said, but potentially sets physicians up for long-term careers treating patients locally. After all, many of the physicians who have had long, successful careers in Fort Worth did their residencies at JPS, he said.
Addressing the need for more physicians, nurses and other medical staff to treat the growing needy population is a constant focus, Haynes said.
“We are continually trying to meet the demand by improving our medical manpower,” he said.
As for the potential space of the John Peter Smith Hospital and the St. JosephÂ’s Hospital, Earley said planning committees and the board of directors are beginning to assess the best use of space. St. JosephÂ’s is not up to standards for modern hospitals and also has a major asbestos problem, Earley said, and so retrofitting or refurbishing the building is not an option. The John Peter Smith Hospital does have usable space, Earley said, but decisions will probably be made with the input of professional planning groups who have experience in this sort of work.
“As we’ve seen in the new pavilion, when you open up a new bed, it’s filled, so you don’t want to take the risk that you should have been better about your space allocation,” he said.
Growth and development in the JPS Health Network is not just relegated to its downtown locations; the system has many school-based centers and other health centers around Tarrant County, and Earley said that the primary focus of the system is to make sure patients can get the care they need easily. Looking at every point of patient throughput and being open about how and why changes are being made is what will assure people that their taxpayer dollars are going to good use, he said.
“I want to rid the system of issues like, ‘I tried to get an appointment but I couldn’t get one’ or ‘I tried to call and I couldn’t get through,’” he said. “Even if you hear a couple of those, you want to hear none of those.”
Contact Bassett at ebassett@bizpress.net
