Administrators at St. Anthony Medical Center in Crown Point are making it possible for local athletes to receive rehabilitative treatment for sports injuries and return to the field quicker.
The hospital started a Sports Medicine Institute that expanded with the opening of the Franciscan Point Outpatient Health Complex in 2008 and includes an Athletic Development Center. The new facilities recognize the skills of staff physicians who had sports medicine training.
"We came to realize the physician component wasn't enough, we also wanted to help the athletes return to playing," said Kevin DeBraal, the St. Anthony Medical Center vice president of administrative services.
Today, DeBraal said the there are about 750 athlete visits a month to the three components of the Sports Medicine Institute. It includes the medical aspect with surgeons and physicians, the rehabilitative component with physical and occupational therapy and the athletic component to train athletes.
"There's really nothing else like it in Northwest Indiana and south suburban Chicago," said St. Anthony Medical Center President David Ruskowski. "I'm sure others are looking at this with some envy, but it takes a lot of resources to put this together."
Gene Diamond, the Northern Region CEO of the Sisters of St. Francis Health Services Inc., which runs St. Anthony Medical Center, said the hospitals and facilities in Northwest Indiana are on the cutting edge of medicine. The Sports Medicine Institute and improved access to new technology are indicative of how employees pay attention to the needs of their patients, he said.
"I've been in health care for more than 30 years and in a medical family all my life. The amount of innovation that is occurring today is really amazing," Diamond said. "The access that people in community hospitals have to technology is pretty amazing."
But James Callaghan, a physician and president of St. Anthony Memorial in Michigan City, said it isn't always technology that creates important innovations.
"You can have great medical knowledge and technology, but unless you have the system to capture best practices, it doesn't matter," he said.
It is through patient care, technology and services that Diamond believes the Sisters of St. Francis Hospitals in Northwest Indiana have been leading the pack in terms of innovative medicine at its five campuses and more than 40 facilities.
Both the Hammond and Dyer campuses of St. Margaret Mercy are accredited by the Society of Chest Pain Centers, the first two in Northwest Indiana. Diamond said the staff recognized there was a high number of people in the region and at the campuses with heart disease and they pursued the accreditation.
At the St. Anthony Memorial Campus in Michigan City, the hospital has done well recognizing patient's needs, receiving national awards for patient care. About a year ago, the hospital instituted evidence-based order sets, or standards that guide medical care.
Callaghan said the hospital looked at industries with the safest practices and saw they pay great attention to standardization. So, the hospital approached Zynx Health and together developed evidence-based order sets for the hospital.
About a month after implementation, Callaghan said the hospital saw its compliance with Medicare increase to one of the top tiers in the nation.
"Maybe it's not easy for patients to see, but ... we want patients to understand they're receiving a higher level of care," he said.
