Donation Believed To Be Largest Of Its Type In History of The Region
TYLER, TX – When officials with Trinity Mother Frances Hospitals and Clinics announced plans to construct Tyler’s first Heart Hospital last April, the concept was not only ambitious, but it offered a completely new approach to heart care. On October 5, the Heart Hospital project received a record contribution when Louis and Peaches Owen of Tyler announced an $18 million donation to the Trinity Mother Frances Foundation to help build a freestanding Heart Hospital on the campus of Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler.
The hospital will be named The Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital in honor of their donation.
Hospital officials said they believe the $18 million gift is the largest private donation ever to a medical facility in this part of Texas.
“With this extremely generous gift, Louis and Peaches Owen have made it possible for patients to have access to what we believe will be one of the finest heart hospitals in the country,” said Lindsey Bradley, FACHE, President, Trinity Mother Frances Hospitals and Clinics. “Louis and Peaches are people of deep faith and we are so grateful that they chose to support Mother Frances Hospital with a gift that will help us continue our mission to enhance community service through compassion, excellence and efficiency.”
The Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital at Mother Frances will be completed in two phases. Phase One is currently being constructed inside Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler’s Ornelas Tower and is scheduled to open this December. Phase Two will begin construction in the spring of 2011 and should take 18 months to complete. The Heart Hospital will be seven stories, include numerous cardiac, thoracic and vascular services and stand east of and adjacent to Mother Frances Hospital. It will connect to the main hospital in several locations, allowing specialists and clinical personnel to easily access both buildings. Architectural plans are still being revised to determine square footage, number of beds and total cost of the project.
“This heart hospital has been a dream for us for about five years, but during the last 18 months, it started to come together,” said Lindsey Bradley. “We visited some of the best heart hospitals in the country, including the Sydell and Arnold Miller Heart and Vascular Hospital at Cleveland Clinic and Indiana Heart Hospital, one of the first Heart Hospitals in the country. These Hospitals generously shared with us their programs and how they were structured. From these visits, we combined what we felt were the best aspects of these programs and have incorporated them into The Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital. I believe that when it opens, this facility will become a destination for heart patients from across the country. It will be that good.”
“Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, but here in east Texas, the death rate is higher than in other areas of the state,” said Ray Thompson, FACHE, executive vice president for Trinity Mother Frances Hospital and Clinics/CEO Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler. “Mother Frances Hospital brought heart care to Tyler in 1983 and The Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital is a continuation of Trinity Mother Frances’ commitment to providing the best heart care in not only the region, but in the country.”
When asked about their significant contribution to Mother Frances, Peaches Owen focused on the importance of everyone doing their part. “We don’t want the publicity, I mean we’re not doing this for that reason. This is not at all our thing, we’re very private and we live very simply and we never have really wanted to have it advertised that we’re doing these things, but if we come out and say we are doing this, maybe it will spur philanthropy in others. I think that we all have to help one another and we’re all in this together and we’re going to have to help each other,” said Mrs. Owen. “I think their (TMF) idea is to just make it the best hospital in the United States…and this is the beginning, I hope. It’s a legacy for us. It’s something our grandchildren and our great grandchildren can say, my grandparents, my great grandparents did this, they started this.”
James Caccitolo, MD, Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Trinity Mother Frances, said the new approach to heart care is a major improvement for heart surgery patients and the physicians and medical staff who treat them.
“The traditional approach for caring for heart surgery patients requires transporting them multiple times during their hospital stay, meaning a patient might be taken from the Chest Pain Center to the cath lab, to surgery, to recovery, to CICU, to step down and then to a room. All of this can take a lot of time and potentially slow the healing process,” said Dr. Caccitolo.
“The Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital completely rewrites how we care for cardiac patients by bringing most of what the cardiac patient needs to their bedside or in close proximity,” said Trinity Mother Frances Chief of Cardiology, C. Fagg Sanford III, MD, FACC. Dr. Sanford is a physician with Tyler Cardiovascular Consultants (CVC).
“This approach is patterned on the Universal Bed Model, where patients stay in one room during their hospitalization with the appropriate level of care brought to them. We expect this will bring improved cardiac patient outcomes and shorter hospital stays,” said Dr. Sanford.
Staff training, along with new medical and Information Technology enhancements are part of Phase One, with all renovations designed to streamline the patient experience and facilitate greater family involvement. Officials said a key change is the conversion of the fourth floor of the Ornelas Tower to a cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) utilizing the Universal Bed Model.
About The Louis & Peaches Owen Heart Hospital at Mother Frances
Phase One
Now under construction inside Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler’s Ornelas Tower and scheduled to open December 2010, Phase One includes:
• State-of-the-art enhancements of medical and information technology
• Rigorous staff training in most advanced evidence based cardiac care methods
• Conversion of the fourth floor of the Ornelas Tower to a cardiac intensive care unit
• Implementation of the Universal Bed Model, which allows cardiac patient to remain in one room and one bed throughout the hospital stay, for more rapid healing
• Greater family involvement in patient’s recovery
• Patient and Family Education Center for the surgical patient to improve outcomes
Phase Two – Construction of the Louis & Peaches Owen Heart Hospital
Now in design, Phase Two will begin construction in Spring 2011, with completion within 18 months. The freestanding seven-story structure will be on the campus of Mother Frances Hospital and connected to the areas developed in Phase I of the Heart Hospital. This allows the benefits of a hospital dedicated to Heart Care, but within easy reach of the acute care hospital.
The Louis and Peaches Owen Hospital will include:
• Separate entry and driveway accessible from East Dawson Street, with available valet/patient assistance at the front entrance
• Spacious multi-level lobby with amenities including a gift shop and food outlet, both with a focus on the Heart Patient
• Conference Center for community education, heart screenings and events
• Patient and Family Education Center and Resource Center
• Meditation Room / Chapel to meet spiritual needs of patients, families and caregivers
• Outpatient Cardiac Diagnostics in one convenient location
• On-site Cardiac Rehabilitation
• Three floors with a total of 48 ICU patient beds dedicated exclusively to cardiac patients and designed to provide all levels of care, from admission through discharge
• 16 cardiac observation beds for Rapid Assessment and Treatment
• Patient and Guest Room Service dining
• Upgraded amenities in each patient room to accommodate the needs of the heart patient
About The Trinity Mother Frances Heart Institute
Trinity Mother Frances Heart Institute is the leading provider of heart care in east Texas. More heart procedures are performed at Mother Frances Hospital than in any other east Texas facility. Trinity Mother Frances is the only facility in the region to provide robotic-assisted heart bypass surgery using the da Vinci System. William F. Turner, Jr., MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon with Trinity Clinic, has performed more robotic-assisted heart surgeries than any other surgeon in Texas.
In addition, Trinity Mother Frances Cardiology Services recognitions include:
• In August 2010, Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler was named a recipient of the American College of Cardiology Foundation’s NCDR ACTION Registry-Get With The Guidelines (GWTG) Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2010 – one of only 135 hospitals nationwide to do so
• Clinical Achievements in Cardiac Services (HealthGrades) – Five-star rated for Treatment of Heart Failure two years in a row, 2009 and 2010
Blue Distinction CentersSM for Cardiac Care (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas – 2010) Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas has designated Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler as a Blue Distinction CenterSM for Cardiac Care
Trinity Mother Frances Cardiology Services can claim many notable achievements:
• More than 638,000 cardiac procedures
• More than 13,000 open-heart surgeries
• More than 60,000 cardiac catheterizations
• More than 16,000 interventional cardiac stents
• Nearly 12,000 pacemaker/electrophysiology procedures
• More than 200 robotic heart surgeries
• First Intensive Care Unit in east Texas
• First in the region to perform permanent pacemaker implantation
• First open-heart surgery suite in east Texas
• First comprehensive Heart Institute in the region
• One of the first in the U.S. to introduce clot-busting drugs
• First in east Texas with advanced lipid testing
• First in the U.S. with total EKG networking capabilities
• First in east Texas with accredited Chest Pain Center
• First magnetic assisted complex interventional cardiac procedure in the world was performed in the TMF Heart Institute
• First robotic heart bypass surgery in east Texas performed at TMF Heart Institute
• First institution in east Texas with da Vinci, the world’s most advanced surgical robotic system
• First in east Texas to implement CODE STEMI protocol for rapid assessment and treatment of heart attack victims with ST-elevation myocardial infarction
• First in east Texas to perform minimally invasive mitral valve repair
About Trinity Mother Frances Hospitals and Clinics
Trinity Mother Frances Hospitals and Clinics includes Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler, Mother Frances Hospital-Jacksonville, Mother Frances Hospital-Winnsboro, Trinity Mother Frances Rehabilitation Hospital, affiliated with HealthSouth, Tyler ContinueCARE Hospital, a long-term acute care facility, and Trinity Clinic. Trinity Clinic is the area’s preferred multispecialty medical group, with over 250 physicians and mid-level providers representing 37 specialties in 36 clinic locations serving east Texas. For more information on services available through Trinity Mother Frances Hospitals and Clinics, visit tmfhc.org.
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