St. John’s Queens Hospital: Born Again
Hospitals
Written by Eric Slack   
Tuesday, 01 January 2008
St. John’s Queens Hospital: Born Again - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Annette Hastings is leading this century-old Catholic hospital’s reinvention.
To say St. John’s Queens Hospital had an eventful start to the 21st century would be an understatement. SJQH has served the borough of Queens for more than a century, but it recently faced the most trying time of its existence.

St. John’s Queens Hospital: Born Again - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Annette Hastings, Executive Director
SJQH was a part of Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers along with seven other hospitals including another Queens-based facility, Mary Immaculate Hospital. The system was set up in 2000 after the merger of Catholic Medical Centers of Brooklyn and Queens, Saint Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center of New York, and Sisters of Charity Healthcare in Staten Island. After a financial crisis peaked with a $153 million operating loss in 2004, Saint Vincent filed for bankruptcy.

The silver lining for St. John’s and Mary Immaculate was the emergence of Caritas Health Care Planning, owned by Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn near the Queens border. In June 2006, Wyckoff bought the distressed hospitals for $40 million and created Brooklyn-Queens Health Care. The new entity created an affiliation between the three facilities but was structured to keep each hospital’s finances separate.

“It allowed us to develop a business plan and a strategic vision. We needed to maintain our viability going forward because this community is severely underserved,” said Annette Hastings, executive director. “Queens is the least bedded borough in the city. Manhattan has 7.1 beds for every 1,000 residents; Queens has 1.4 beds per thousand.”

For that reason alone, closing the hospital was never a viable option. But the rumors were there. Because of the tenuous nature of SJQH’s finances, doctors were scared away, and the hospital’s patient base eroded. But in the wake of the sale to Wyckoff, Hastings has begun rebuilding the hospital’s staff—and its reputation.

In with the new
Recently, the hospital brought in a new director of surgery. According to Hastings, Dr. Kap Jae Sung is one of the most respected physicians in the borough. Bringing well-known physicians on to its leadership team is a key component of SJQH’s turnaround plan.
“We’ve been strategically searching for people that we know first and foremost are good doctors but also have the respect of the community,” Hastings said. “We’re trying to recreate something that was here 10 years ago, and by bringing in these doctors, we’re investing in our future.”

By retooling its leadership, Hastings believes the hospital can recover its patients. But that is just one step. To attract more top physicians, the hospital is investing in equipment upgrades. SJQH currently has a cardiac cath lab without an EP physician. To get doctors interested in the position, Hastings saw the need to update the hospital’s EP equipment in November. SJQH has also leased new digital imaging equipment, and the changes are far from complete.

“Our radiology systems and imaging equipment by and large are very old. We’re in the process of leasing new CT scanners, building general X-ray and fluoroscopy rooms, and acquiring some portable radiology equipment that we need here,” said Hastings.

In addition, SJQH converted to a new IT system under Meditech, a patient system for billing and central business office functions. The hospital also invested in manpower needs that had been cut during the last six years.

“Historically, whenever layoffs were required, the service departments were hit. Housekeeping was cut by 30%; engineering staff was cut by 20%; we had even cut our telephone operators,” said Hastings. “We have now re-invested in those areas. We put people back in housekeeping because our physical appearance was at an all-time low. Now we have done a total turnaround on the building and are making this place look good again.”

SJQH has a family health center about two blocks from the main building, and the hospital is looking to create a women’s health center to cover all health needs beyond just OB/gyn. And while the hospital would like to add to its 326-bed capacity, major construction plans are not on the table right now.

“A better way of operating the hospital efficiently is to improve throughput. Rather than adding beds, we are making sure the right patients are being admitted and discharged on a timely basis,” Hastings said. “We’re using all of our resources to ensure that a patient’s length of stay is appropriate for their diagnosis. That allows us to turn the beds over more quickly and have more patients pass through the organization.”

Everyone is welcome
One of the greatest challenges facing SJQH in the fight to get out of the red is the diverse nature of Queens. According to the New York State comptroller, 138 languages are spoken in Queens, making this borough the most diverse in the country. This presents the hospital with a need for systems and staff capable of adapting to whoever comes in the door.

All of SJQH’s literature is printed in multiple languages, and a newly hired, Spanish speaking coordinator runs the state’s required limited-English proficiency program. Jenny Ferrer, in her new role, identifies all patients in the hospital who speak a language other than English and flags his/her record to indicate a patient requiring translation. She also acts as the advocate for the patients; problems and concerns that arise are dealt with expediently.

“We have a host of people in the organization who are qualified to be translators for us in a medical situation, people with a background in healthcare and in medical terminology. We also use the AT&T dual-phone language line system,” said Hastings. “If there is a language not locally translated, we call the language line and through a two-phone system, the physician speaks to the translator and the translator speaks to the patient so everyone hears what is going on.”

With growing patient volume and the motivation to complete the hospital’s restructuring, the rest of the century should be better than the start for SJQH as a part of the Caritas system.
 
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