A global pandemic isn’t the most ideal time for a community to make a major change to health care.
But that’s exactly what happened in Allen County, as the Allen County Regional Hospital began a lease agreement with Saint Luke’s Health System on July 1, 2020. The Kansas City-based health system took over all services and operations, including management of employees.
It happened just a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when the hospital was closed to visitors and services were limited. The hospital had been gearing toward that change for about two years, but the pandemic made the transition even more challenging.
It’s now been a year.
And the past year brought numerous changes and challenges:
• It brought new leadership with Elmore Patterson, a military veteran and health care administrator from Alabama.
• It brought a partnership with Anderson County Hospital, in Garnett, also managed by Saint Luke’s. From the beginning, Saint Luke’s officials envisioned those two communities working in tandem, similar to an arrangement Saint Luke’s has with two community hospitals in Missouri.
• It brought a new employer to town. ACRH employees were no longer county employees; they work for Saint Luke’s.
• It brought a change to services. Saint Luke’s closed the labor and delivery unit at ACRH, a move that upset some in the local community; there just aren’t enough babies born in the region to justify the additional risk that comes with labor and delivery, according to Saint Luke’s officials.
But Saint Luke’s brought access to its stable of specialty physicians and added clinics for neurology, pulmonary and podiatry. Some services are offered through telemedicine, though patients must visit a doctor’s office and receive therapy services at the hospital.
“We were able to do that during a pandemic, and I’m very excited about where we’re headed,” Patterson said.
“I think the first year went very well. The opportunities we had with the pandemic allowed us to really look at the system and see how we can leverage the different programs, different supply chains, opportunities and education.”
Initially, officials hoped Saint Luke’s would take over the lease on Jan. 1, 2020, even though they knew it was a bit of an optimistic goal.
It took a little longer to work out some of the details, and the opening got pushed back again and again.
The pandemic, which became a full-blown crisis in March, brought even bigger questions to the front. The hospital began to restrict visitors, postponed elective surgeries and posted someone at each entrance to screen those who entered the hospital to check for potential exposure to COVID-19.
