Category: St. Clair News

New hospital and a new Physicians Plaza

[Show as slideshow]

A Reflection of the Future for St. Clair County

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin
and Wynter Byrd

Terrell Vick escorted the final patient out of the old St. Vincent’s St. Clair Hospital, and Sean Tinney welcomed the first patients arriving at the new one. It was a fitting role for each to play — Vick as former president and COO and acting as Chief Transition Officer and Tinney as president of St. Vincent’s Rural Hospital Operations.

From their vantage points and through their responsibilities, they witnessed history being made, the page officially turning on Dec. 10, 2011.

“The preparation leading up to it was phenomenal,” said Tinney, who noted that the new hospital opened its doors to the Emergency Department at 6 that morning. The transfer of patients from the old facility began at 9 a.m. and the doors did not shut until the last patient was moved. “It was as smooth as anything I have been a part of.”

For Vick to witness the last patients leaving the old facility where he worked for so many years and Tinney witnessing the first patients coming into the new one he is overseeing, “it was meaningful for him, and it was meaningful for me,” Tinney said.

The move was like clockwork, Tinney said, giving credit to a host of team members. Neeysa Biddle, former COO of St. Vincent’s Health System, coordinated the move with Vick heading transition efforts. Regional Paramedical Services had five ambulances assisting with the move of patients. Dual labs and x-rays operated during the move, and associates and medical staff transitioned to a state-of-the-art electronic health record system.

The entire staff was oriented to the new hospital in the weeks leading up to the move, and when that day arrived, 50 Information Technology specialists reported for duty, ensuring that countless computers and a new order entry system was in place and working properly.

Last-patient — J.C. King (in the ambulance) makes history as the last patient transported from the “old” St. Vincent’s St. Clair. Among St. Vincent’s St. Clair associates who helped close the old hospital: King’s wife, Myra, in the brown coat; Vice President of Patient Care Services Paula McCullough on the far left and Terrell Vick, front, right.

“It made it a whole lot easier to adapt,” Tinney said.

In the days since, the activity has shown no signs of slowing. Admissions are up 28 percent. Emergency Department visits jumped 10 percent. Use of the 64-slice CT Scanner and MRI equipment climbed 22 percent. At that rate, Tinney said, the new hospital could see more than 25,000 patients in a year’s time in the Emergency Department as opposed to 19,000 in the old facility.

On Dec. 19, 2011, the Physicians Plaza professional office building opened adjacent to the hospital, featuring 40,000 square feet of space. St. Vincent’s is leasing 20,000 square feet for specialists and an outpatient center, and Johnson Development, which specializes in developing, acquiring and managing medical office buildings and outpatient facilities, is developing the building.

St. Vincent’s Family Care — Pell City, the practice of Drs. Tuck, Scarbrough and Williams, is slated to open there in February or March along with St. Vincent’s Obstetrics and Gynecology-St. Clair.

New services are being added as well. Wound care with hyperbaric oxygen chambers opens in April or May, and in June, a sleep diagnostic center will open with two beds initially that can be expanded to four beds.

A partnership with MedSouth, a durable medical equipment company, will allow St. Vincent’s to offer home medical equipment, like wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, oxygen and respiratory equipment as well as diabetic supplies.

Time-share space is being utilized by specialists working part time in St. Clair. And more specialists are being recruited in the areas of orthopedics, general surgery, cardiology and pulmonology. To Tinney, it all translates into “more comprehensive medical services we can provide our community.”

Laurie Regan, a principal with Johnson Development, couldn’t agree more with Tinney’s assessment of the hospital’s ability to provide more comprehensive services. Her firm is developing the building with a definite eye toward the future and expansions.

Fresenius Medical Care dialysis will open with 12 stations and plans for an expansion, she said.

Even the building itself was constructed with expansion in mind, evidenced by a third floor of 5,000 square feet of additional space that will make way for a vertical expansion. “We know the growth is going to be there,” Regan said.

The Physicians Plaza is expected to be fully functional in February and has features and amenities that make it appealing, like its easy access to the first floor of the adjoining hospital and a full complement of diagnostic and lab services.

Art from elementary school students will hang on the walls of the second floor surrounding family practice, illustrating the partnership between the medical facility and the community.

“It is a community building, really, and we want it to have a St. Clair flavor,” Regan said.

The tie to community has a special meaning to Regan personally in addition to her role as a developer. “As residents of Pell City and St. Clair County, my husband and I have been strong supporters of St. Clair Regional and St. Vincent’s. I’m doubly blessed that my career in health-care development allowed me to be a part of this wonderful project and work in my hometown.”

Volunteerism Defined

Terry & Sandy Gamble, Robert Hood help
Alpha Ranch rebuild after April’s deadly tornadoes

By Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

“Hear that wind coming down the valley?” asks Sandy Gamble, turning her left ear toward the door, which sounds like it’s about to rattle off its hinges. She laughs nervously. “Yeah, it’s scary. There are no trees now to block it.”

Sitting in a folding metal chair in Alpha Ranch’s new shop building, she glances at the door and windows, as if expecting that wind to pick up the shop and carry it away. It wouldn’t be the first time. It happened April 27, when tornadoes tore through Shoal Creek Valley, destroying almost everything in their path.

Sandy and her husband, Terry, live in the Clay-Trussville area normally. But nothing has been normal for them since the storms. On May 23, they parked their 26-foot travel trailer at Alpha Ranch on County Road 22, better known as Shoal Creek Road. Volunteers extraordinaire, they have devoted themselves to rebuilding the ranch and helping Gary and Phyllis Liverett rebuild their lives.

They came out to Alpha Ranch with Bridgepoint Community Church (Clay-Chalkville) a few days after the April storms. Their congregation put in half a day helping with the cleanup. “We came home that day crying, saying we can do more than just half a day with the church,” Sandy says.

The Gambles met the Liveretts more than 20 years ago, when they worked together at Bridgepoint’s Camp Chula Vista. They had kept in touch, so the Gambles thought about the Liveretts when the storms hit. “We moved here to help clear debris and for her to cook and for me to work,” says Terry, taking a puff from his cigarillo.

After the tornadoes, nothing remained of the original 120-by-40-foot shop building but the concrete slab. Used to teach trades such as auto repair, carpentry and electrical wiring to the at-risk teenage boys who live at Alpha, its reconstruction was a priority so the Liveretts could store materials and machinery while rebuilding the ranch. Once the shop was 85 percent complete, most volunteers had gone home. Only the Gambles and Robert Hood, an Odenville man who has worked alongside them, remained.

“Robert and I did all the finish work,” Terry explains, while keeping a watchful eye on his 28-month-old grandson, Hayden, who is running around in miniature overalls asking grandpa to kiss his boo-boos. “We built the work benches, the cabinets, the roof and walls, did the electrical work and the plumbing.”

With the shop almost complete, attention has turned to rebuilding the two homes destroyed by the tornadoes. One will be occupied by the Crawfords (daughter, son-in-law and nine grandchildren of the Liveretts) and the other by Phyllis and Gary. Maybe the houses will be complete by Christmas, maybe not.

Two years ago, Terry retired from Norfolk Southern Railway and the Army Reserves, two positions he held simultaneously for 36 years. He was deployed five out of the final 10 years of reserve duty, serving in the first Gulf War, in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Bosnia. His job was humanitarian assistance, rebuilding roads, schools and churches that had been destroyed by war. He had seen plenty of destruction, yet none of that prepared him for what he found in Shoal Creek Valley after the April storms.

“I was shocked at the devastation, but more shocked at the attitudes of the people out here,” Terry says. “These people lost everything, yet you did not see them down. They just took things day by day.”

Sandy often cooked breakfast for 50 and lunch for 150 workers and valley residents. At first, she and Terry bought the food, then donations started coming in. “One Saturday we didn’t have any food, and a pipe workers’ union pulled up with barbecue and baked beans,” she says. “We never ran out of food. We couldn’t keep water, Gatorade and ice, though. People were drinking four to six bottles a day during the hot summer. Hardin’s Chapel kept us supplied. I bet they bought 20,000 bottles of water.”

Cooking for hundreds of people and building a shop isn’t exactly what the Gambles had planned for their leisure years. They spent the first year of Terry’s retirement traveling the world, aided by Terry’s “space available” status on military flights. They were accustomed to helping people in need, giving money here, a spare bedroom there, but had never encountered the overwhelming needs they found in Shoal Creek Valley. “What got to me was the sentimental things I saw in the lake after the storms, like the teddy bears and the sofa and the dormers to the Liverett house,” Sandy says.

Terry has a brand-new bass boat that didn’t see water all summer, and he is building a street rod that he hasn’t touched in months. He has reduced his work load to three days a week, however, and manages to get in a little hunting.

So, what are the Gambles taking away from this experience?

“We thought we were going to be blessing other people out here, but we’ve received the blessings,” says Sandy, a retired school teacher. “I had surgery on my hand in October, and I was homesick for this place.”

Terry appreciates his new friendship with fellow volunteer, Robert Hood. After school started, most of the other volunteers went home, but the Gambles and Hood remained. “I never knew Robert before all this, but I’ve enjoyed working with him immensely,” Terry says. “Gary will make a list and Robert and I will go down it, checking off as we get something done. We work well together.”

Like the Gambles, Hood thought he would put in a few days at the Ranch, then return to his normal routine. “Extreme Ministries (a Pell City-based organization that mobilizes volunteers for construction-related projects) sent out an email through our church (First Baptist of Pell City) asking for volunteers for three weeks,” Hood says. “I said I would work three days, Monday through Wednesday, for those three weeks. The need was so great, after one day I realized that wasn’t going to be enough.”

Hood says he could find plenty to do at his house, such as picking up limbs and raking leaves, but in Shoal Creek, he gets a sense of satisfaction knowing he’s giving something back to the community.

A retired plant manager for O’Neal Steel, he is accustomed to volunteering, though. For eight years he put in 2,000 hours a year as a certified reserve deputy sheriff for St. Clair County. He gave that up in 2008 when congestive heart failure made it difficult to wrestle detainees to the ground. He had never wielded a hammer much or installed a toilet before his stretch at Alpha.

“Now I’ve done roofing, plumbing, wiring, carpentry, I’ve set trusses, whatever needed to be done,” he says. “But I tell people I just come out here for the lunches.”

Neither the Gambles nor Hood know when their lives will regain a sense of normalcy. “We’ll go home for Christmas, but we won’t go home permanently until the Lord tells us to,” Sandy Gamble says.

“How much longer will I be here? My wife wants to know, too,” says Hood.

“She has no problem with it, though. Since the latter part of September, I’ve cut back to three days. I volunteer two days a week for the county, filing papers at the courthouses in Ashville and Pell City.”

Ann Bobo, Terry’s first cousin and fellow church member, says the Gambles always have been very giving, very kind people who love to do things for others.

“They are always willing to help somebody out, but privately so that they don’t get any accolades for it,” she says.

Gary Liverett can’t say enough good things about Hood and the Gambles.

“Terry and Sandy have such heart. Sandy has helped feed people up and down the valley. They are a good example of what real volunteerism is,” he states. “Most people have gone back home. They’ve sacrificed and stayed.”

He never knew Hood until he came out with Extreme Ministries. “He has worked constantly and tirelessly; he, too, is the epitome of volunteerism,” Liverett said.

St. Vincent’s: More than a decade in the making

[Show as slideshow]

As motorists headed up and down Interstate 20 over the past two years, they might have thought the massive construction on a hillside overlooking the busy highway is an overnight success story. After all, what they see has gone up relatively quickly.

But it’s what they don’t see that tells the story of a long road to get to where St. Vincent’s St. Clair is today. The new state-of-the-art hospital, set to open Dec. 10, is far from a recent development, local officials will quickly tell you. This has been a vision decades in the making.

It has spanned multiple mayoral terms in Pell City and on the St. Clair County Commission. The talk of a new hospital dates back to the St. Clair Regional Hospital Board and later, the county’s Health Care Authority. And it has gone through a series of health systems before finding just the right fit with Ascension Health and St. Vincent’s Health System.

But the vision seemed to really start taking shape around 2003 when officials acquired land just north of the interstate. The first to locate there was Jefferson State Community College.

The obvious next choice for the adjoining campus was a new hospital.

Guin Robinson, who was mayor at the time and had previously served on the St. Clair County Hospital Board, recalled the needs. “Our hospital was an aging building. It was cost prohibitive to expand or update. There were no private rooms or baths.

“We knew that if we were going to be the county we envisioned us to be, something had to happen,” Robinson said. “We couldn’t have written a script any better for what transpired.”

Anywhere along the way, the dreams of a new hospital coming to fruition could have fallen apart. But they didn’t because when one area of the vision would falter, a partner stepped up to make sure the whole vision was realized.

“It took all entities,” Robinson said. And now, the Health Care Authority, St. Clair County Commission, City of Pell City, St. Clair Economic Development Council and Ascension Health, St. Vincent’s parent company, are solid partners in a vision that has the power to change the face of the region.

“Had one of the parties not stepped up, the entire project would have been in jeopardy,” said Pell City Mayor Bill Hereford, who served as chairman of the hospital board before becoming mayor. “Quality of health care is one of the top three or four issues of any community. This new hospital ensures the highest quality health care for the next generation.”

Hereford agreed the land acquisition was the tipping point. “It has been like dominos, only they aren’t falling down. They’re standing up.”

He cited breakthroughs like Jefferson State as a place to train nurses and the new hospital set to open. Behind it, a state veteran’s home is going up. A townhome development is under construction nearby. “It is a great day. The ripple effect has been tremendous.”

St. Clair Economic Development Executive Director Don Smith couldn’t agree more. “There are always identifiable moments that positively change a community’s future, and for St. Clair County, one of those moments took place when St. Vincent’s Health System took over management of our existing county hospital.

“Without their partnership, leadership and a strong commitment to premium health care, we would not have a new state-of-the-art hospital opening in Pell City. This new hospital is an economic developer’s dream project. It provides a quality health care service, creates new jobs, and helps our organization successfully recruit new employers to our county,” Smith said. When new manufacturers are looking for a new area to locate, they are always interested in the quality of that community’s health care, Smith explained. “They know that their employees’ health has a direct effect on their success. In addition, having this new hospital will directly create other opportunities like the Department of Veterans Affairs Colonel Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home across from the new hospital,” which will create 300 new jobs. “This project would not have come to St. Clair County without this new hospital being constructed.”

Smith credited the county commission for its foresight in moving the entire project forward. “The County Commission has recognized for quite some time that having a new hospital in our community would have an incredible effect on local economy for generations to come. We are very fortunate to have such proactive elected officials throughout our community.”

County Commission Chairman Stan Batemon, a driving force behind the project and a constant proponent over all these years, once called the 160-acre tract of land a “green field” that is now growing a community college, a hospital, a professional medical building, a veteran’s home and a residential development.

“I’m looking at the new hospital and all the things with it as a small UAB-type development for St. Clair County,” Batemon said. “The hospital is driving the school, and it’s driving the Veteran’s Home and any other developments that will go out there. It’s our small education and health complex.”

What’s next? “It is definitely going to be the catalyst that moves the county and the region forward,” Batemon has said.

Lawrence Fields, who chairs the Health Care Authority and is a former mayor himself, called it “one of the best economic engines to come to St. Clair County in a long time.”

He pointed to the five-member partnership as the key to success, too. “It is outstanding that everyone worked together as well as they have.” In addition, “We have a great board, a good mixture from all over the county” who lent their support.

“I don’t think anything will surpass this,” Fields said. “It’s like what (St. Vincent’s CEO) John O’Neil says — ‘It’s one of the most modern, rural hospitals in America.’ I just have to pinch myself when I ride by.”

St. Vincent’s: Beyond Local Impact

When architect Russ Realmuto of Birchfield Penuel & Associates took the lead on designing a new hospital for St. Vincent’s and St. Clair County, it was more than just a professional project to him. It was personal.

“My family homesteaded the land in the 1840s. I live a mile and a half from it.” It’s home. And Realmuto calls his role in designing the new, state-of-the-art hospital “very much an honor.”

As a side note, he mentions he is due for surgery in coming weeks. “My surgery is the first scheduled in the new hospital,” he said with apparent pride, adding that he hopes others will take his lead. “It is very important that we all support the hospital now that it’s built. St. Vincent’s has such a good reputation,” but it will take a consistent community commitment to help grow the hospital.

“We feel like it is going to expand. We designed it to expand in so many different directions. It has a lot of expansion paths,” like Emergency Department treatment areas and more space for more physicians. The medical office building is built to expand.

“It is a gorgeous site.”

Realmuto is not unlike others who have worked on this project. It’s not just a hospital building to them. It’s doing something good for their hometown.

Jason Goodgame, vice president of Goodgame Company, is the project manager, who also is a Pell City native. His company joined forces with Hoar Construction, the lead contractor on the hospital, to sell it as a local Participation and Inclusion project, which meant that 25 percent of the project had to have local participation. To St. Clair County companies, that meant $6 million.

Much of the money to build the hospital came from hospital taxes of local people, and it was a way to give back, Goodgame said.

Hiring local has been the mantra of this project throughout. It is not uncommon to see names like Southern Landscapes, Joiner Plumbing or Johnny’s Electric — all St. Clair County companies — heading in and out of the site to do their work.

Nelson Glass; Kirkpatrick Concrete, which is owned by National Cement Co. in Ragland; Jenkins Brick; and Alabama Brick are just a few of the companies with ties to St. Clair County. The stained glass windows of the chapel were by Leeds Stained Glass, a Pell City-based company owned by Terry Barnes. A family business, Barnes said, it began as a church furniture endeavor that eventually led to making stained glass windows for churches and chapels all over the world.

“We are very excited” to be a part of the St. Vincent’s project, Barnes said. The hospital will be “a number-one draw for the community. You are always excited about doing something in your own community.”

For Goodgame Company, “it was important for us to be a part of it. To have our family company’s name on a building that is going to be here for the next generation is important,” Goodgame said of the 57-year-old business.

“It was a chance to be a part of something that is going to be here a long time, just like our business.”

St. Vincent’s Ribbon Cutting

[Show as slideshow]

St. Vincent’s Health System held a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday, December 6, for the opening of the new state-of-the-art St. Vincent’s St. Clair hospital. The ceremony was followed by a reception and guided tours in the new facility.

Local community leaders and elected officials joined the facility’s five development partners, St. Vincent’s Health System, the St. Clair County Health Care Authority, St. Clair County Commission, City of Pell City, and the St. Clair County Economic Development Council to celebrate the new 40-bed, 79,000-square-foot hospital. The existing St. Vincent’s St. Clair hospital will be moving to its new location and begin seeing patients on Saturday, Dec. 10, at 6 a.m.

“With our partners, St. Vincent’s is proud to open a state-of-the-art hospital in St. Clair County that will provide this community with compassionate quality care for years to come,” said John O’Neil, president and CEO of St. Vincent’s Health System. “We’ve had the dedicated medical staff and associates to make this one of the best rural hospitals in the country and now we have the facility and technology to match it.”

The new hospital, located at 7063 Veterans Parkway in Pell City, is expected to be one of the most well-equipped rural hospitals in the country boasting features such an expanded emergency department, all private rooms, the latest in diagnostic imaging, inpatient and outpatient surgery services, and computers at the bedside. The facility is the only hospital in St. Clair County.

St. Vincent’s St. Clair Opening

[Show as slideshow]

Stories by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

SPECIAL COVERAGE:

In just two days, on Dec. 10, the doors are expected to officially open on St. Clair County’s early Christmas gift — a state-of-the-art hospital that is expected to change the face of health care throughout the entire region.

Finishing touches have been applied to the impressive building rising from the ridge overlooking Interstate 20 on Pell City’s north side over the past two years. And officials are preparing for a move from the county’s health care past to its promising future.

The final vestiges of the old St. Vincent’s St. Clair on Dr. John Haynes Drive will close at 6 a.m. Dec. 10, and the new St. Vincent’s St. Clair will be official and, more importantly, open for business.

It has been a dream 20 or more years in the making, but the region’s red-letter day has arrived, and the community has watched its health care future going up with great anticipation.

St. Vincent’s has long been a trusted name in medicine in the Birmingham area, and its reach into St. Clair County has been a perfect fit for both entities, officials say.

“This new hospital has truly been a collaborative effort between the St. Clair County Health Care Authority, St. Clair County Commission, City of Pell City, St. Clair County Economic Development Council and St. Vincent’s Health System.” said John D. O‘Neil, president and CEO of St. Vincent’s Health System.

“For many years, leaders in St. Clair County have worked toward building a new hospital. St. Vincent’s Health System and our parent organization, Ascension Health, also are committed to improving accessibility to quality health care in the communities that we serve. Together, we’ve made the vision of a new hospital a reality,” O’Neil said.

“The opening of the new state-of-the-art St. Vincent’s St. Clair will have a tremendous impact on Pell City and the surrounding communities for years to come. We anticipate that additional physician specialists will join the medical staff and new services will be added. We are going to continue growing right along with St. Clair County.”

The 40-bed, 79,000-square-foot facility with an additional 40,000 square feet of adjoining professional office space features “the latest and greatest equipment,” according to St. Vincent’s St. Clair Chief Transition Officer Terrell Vick.

Three operating rooms, Gastrointestinal lab, pathology, pharmacy, larger intensive care unit, imaging, rehabilitation, digital mammography, bone density testing, nuclear medicine, dialysis and a 64-slice CT Scanner are but a handful of services and features of the new hospital. A patient can even have a test done in St. Clair and have it interpreted in real time in Birmingham if need be.

In addition to its regular patient rooms, the hospital has two additional ones with a family room adjoining for extended stay, which was made possible by a $1 million donor.

Six large patient rooms make up the Intensive Care Unit with surgery and recovery units adjacent to it.

Initially, the hospital’s offerings will focus on basic surgery. There are 10 same-day surgery suites, which are not included in the bed count of the hospital.

The Emergency Department boasts 12 rooms — 10 private exam rooms and two trauma rooms — a sizable step up from the eight cubicles in service in the old hospital. A separate entrance for ED and separate waiting areas for infectious and clean triage make the hospital more effective in dealing with emergencies and better serving patients.

A modern cafeteria with dining inside and a garden outside is serviced by Morrison’s and a Starbuck’s coffee shop are ready to meet food and drink needs of visitors, patients and staff. And the entire facility has wi-fi capabilities.

The design of the hospital puts patient and visitor convenience first. It is set up in service units with separate registration for one-day surgery, Emergency Department, Rehabilitation and Imaging. “It is easy for patients and visitors to navigate,” Vick said. It is possible for them to park and walk straight to the area they need.

In the adjacent professional office building, St. Vincent’s will lease 20,000 square feet of space for its medical groups, and there will be timeshare space provided for specialist services like cardiology, general surgery, pulmonology and orthopedics. Three cardiovascular groups along with two general-surgery groups already cover the area. “We hope eventually to have full-time services in those specialities,” Vick said.

The professional office building is expected to open in coming weeks, and a sleep disorder clinic should follow in March.

A round chapel with intricate stone work inside and out is a focal point of the hospital and offers a spiritual haven for patients and visitors as part of this faith-based health system.

Vick, who has been with the hospital for nearly 40 years, can’t seem to mask his excitement over the prospect of this new facility. It has been a long time in coming and would not have been possible without the team work of St. Vincent’s, St. Clair County Commission, St. Clair Health Care Authority, St. Clair Economic Development Council, Jefferson State Community College, City of Pell City and the State of Alabama.

Chuck Penuel, whose architectural firm, Birchfield Penuel & Associates, designed the new hospital, called it “an important part of the St. Vincent’s ministry as it reaches further into the community providing the same quality health care as it has provided in the Birmingham area for so many years.

“It is certainly one of the most challenging projects due to the nature of working with four clients instead of one — the county, city, health care authority and St. Vincent’s,” Penuel said. “It’s a diverse group, but it shows that a common interest results in a positive outcome for the community.”

“I’m happy for our associates and our medical staff,” Vick said. “And we wouldn’t be here without community support.”

Features