MSHA Builds New Hospitals, Streamlines Operations, and Achieves Recognitions for Heart Health and Technology

For a decade, Mountain States Health Alliance has played a key role in making Johnson City the medical hub for all of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. From opening the new home for the region’s only hospital for kids – Niswonger Children’s Hospital – to building the first “Green” hospital in the state with Franklin Woods Community Hospital, Mountain States has proven to be a leader both locally as well as on the state and even national level. Since its creation in 1998, Mountain Stats has continued down a path of growth that has led to services covering four states, its flagship hospital – the Johnson City Medical Center (JCMC) – being named the top heart hospital in all of East Tennessee including Knoxville and Chattanooga and its economic impact changing the quality of living in the entire area. A not-for-profit organization, Mountain States has become Washington County’s largest employer and the largest health system in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. The 14 Mountain States facilities along with more than 10,000 team members and associated physicians join with a 59-facility member healthcare network to create a referral pattern throughout the region bringing the best care into small communities while those with the most serious conditions receive the highest level of treatment close to home. Guided by a strategic plan that creates a hub-and-spoke system, these smaller outlying facilities treat what patients they can, while transferring other patients in need of a higher level of care to another, larger facility inside the Mountain States family. At the center of the plan is JCMC. Over the last 20 years, this facility has transformed from a community hospital serving Washington County to the large, tertiary medical center it is today.

Expansion of services has been continual.

Most recently, it can be seen in Niswonger Children’s Hospital. Having opened in March, this 69-bed hospital replaced The Children’s Hospital, which was inside JCMC since 1992. Niswonger Children’s is still on the campus of JCMC and connected to the main facility, but generally operates as a separate facility offering a special kind of care of the region’s smallest patients. It took nearly five years of fundraising, community support and steady construction for this $36 million facility to become a reality.

Niswonger Children’s Hospital is named after lead donors Scott and Nikki Niswonger of Greeneville, Tenn., who gave $10 million toward the construction after realizing the hospital was home to one of only five St. Jude Affiliate Clinics in the nation, where children could receive cutting edge treatment for cancer.

“Prior to the building of this hospital, many families would have to travel all the way to Memphis, sometimes staying for weeks on end - literally destroying the family unit,” said Scott Niswonger. “I learned if Mountain States Health Alliance built this hospital, it would allow many of our sick children to stay at home with their families and friends. That’s why I wanted to make this hospital, already an affiliate of St. Jude’s, a reality!”

The Mountain States Foundation played a large part to the creation of the hospital, including raising $23 million from the community through the Capital Campaign. “When we started this campaign, we were told that it would be very hard to convince people outside of Johnson City/Washington County that this new hospital was a regional project,” said Marcy Walker, chair of the Foundation Capital Campaign Committee. “But the reality is, many of our major donors are from outside this county. They are from Greeneville, Carter County, Johnson County, Sullivan County and even as far away as Chattanooga.”

JCMC also recently opened a new Children’s Emergency Department – a first for the region – and named it’s waiting area in honor of local favorite and NFL football star Jason Witten.

Witten – the record-setting tight end for the Dallas Cowboys – and his wife, Michelle, donated $200,000 to the Capital Campaign through the Witten S.C.O.R.E. Foundation. Witten said his interest in the pediatric emergency services was due to Michelle’s profession as an emergency nurse.

“Michelle and I are proud to be from East Tennessee, and we are very proud of this hospital. It is a state-of-the-art facility that allows the children from this area to receive the best treatment possible,” the Dallas Cowboys star said of Niswonger Children’s Hospital.

Along with the name change, the waiting area has been redecorated in a football theme and filled with images and memorabilia from Witten’s sports career at Elizabethton High School, the University of Tennessee and as a Cowboy. A large Cowboys star now hangs on the wall, a football field rug is on the floor and goalposts surround the televisions.

Mountain States is on target for completing the new Franklin Woods Community Hospital inside Med Tech Park next year. This new facility has a focus on “Green” building and will be the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certified building in the region and one of only a few healthcare facilities in the state that have acquired this international rating for environmental building excellence. Franklin Woods Community Hospital – which is to be built at an approximate cost of $122 million – will have approximately 240,000 square feet and is to be built on a 25-acre lot adjacent to the Mountain States Wellness Center inside Med Tech Park.

The replacement facility will have 80 licensed and a 22-room Emergency Department. Of the licensed beds, 20 will be dedicated to Labor and Delivery as part of Women’s and Children’s Services.

The NSH and JCSH buildings will remain in the MSHA family in other roles, including administrative offices, outpatient services and a Skilled Nursing Facility ward. Along with the growth has come excellence, such as the naming of Mountain States Materials Management Department by Healthcare Purchasing News as the 2009 Materials Management Department of the Year.

In naming the Mountain States department as its top choice for materials management operations, Healthcare Purchasing News pointed to the healthcare system’s ability to bring together many different groups into a “hub-and spoke” strategy that created efficiencies, improved performance and lowered cost.

“We felt that during a tremendous period of growth and operational uncertainty, Mountain States developed effective supply chain strategies that helped a disparate group of individual healthcare providers coalesce into a more cohesive organization,” said HPN Senior Editor Rick Dana Barlow. “More importantly, they didn’t achieve success on their terms through some costly or trendy programs but by identifying and mastering the fundamentals of a high-quality supply chain operation, which makes them a role model for any facility and for any professional.”

Other examples of excellence include the fact that JCMC does more heart procedures than any other hospital in Tennessee east of Nashville and is ranked 67th in heart services for the entire nation by the independent group Data Advantage. Mountain States was named one of the Most Wired healthcare systems by Hospitals and Health Networks Magazine for great strides in the realm of electronic medical records and was also named the top finalists for the Most Wired Innovator Award for placing emergency department wait times on the Internet.