A public-private collaboration between Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Louisiana State University went into effect in April, bringing the LSU Health Sciences Center's inpatient and outpatient services, graduate medical education and clinical training in Baton Rouge to Our Lady of the Lake.
A cooperative endeavor agreement was established between Our Lady of the Lake and LSU to maintain healthcare access for Baton Rouge residents and continue graduate medical education in light of the April 15 closure of the state-owned Earl K. Long Medical Center in North Baton Rouge.
As part of the transition, Our Lady of the Lake opened a new LSU Health Baton Rouge Urgent Care Center in North Baton Rouge the day of the hospital's closing. It takes walk-in patients to treat minor injuries and illness and is open 24 hours a day. Our Lady of the Lake, part of Baton Rouge-based FMOL Health System, also assumed the operations of five existing outpatient clinics, including a surgery center and pharmacy. Patients will continue to see LSU doctors and residents at the clinics with the same financial policies as in the past, including a sliding scale for patients needing financial assistance. The clinics will operate under the LSU Health Baton Rouge name, according to Our Lady of the Lake administrators.
About 700 state employees were laid off from Earl K. Long Medical Center and the LSU clinics during the transition. Our Lady of the Lake then hired about 400 people, about 90 percent of whom were previously employed by the state. LSU Health Baton Rouge patients can expect to see many care providers they know and recognize, Our Lady of the Lake officials said.
Our Lady of the Lake is now the clinical site for LSU's Baton Rouge-based physician training and graduate medical education programs. More than 160 LSU medical residents currently are training at Our Lady of the Lake's campus, medical center leadership said.
The partnership traces its roots back to 2005, explains Our Lady of the Lake's Vice President of Mission Coletta Barrett. "Our Lady of the Lake was initially not a teaching institution, but it became home temporarily to over 300 medical students, residents and fellows over a two-day period after Hurricane Katrina hit," she said. Within a few more years, it became clear that Earl K. Long, in need of significant improvement, would require about $475 million to remodel and update its aged facilities. The Our Lady of the Lake, LSU collaboration came from a desire to meet the needs of patients in the community and to continue to train doctors without the expense of building a new hospital, she said.
As part of the transition, a new 120-bed tower for heart and vascular patients is expected to open in November as well as a new medical education building, says Stephanie Manson, Our Lady of the Lake's vice president of operations. The expanded space is an obligation of a cooperative endeavor agreement between Our Lady of the Lake and LSU. The medical center is also expanding its trauma and emergency center, and working to become a Level 1 Trauma Center.
At the peak of its use, Earl K. Long was a 345-bed charity hospital, among its patients were poor and uninsured residents of North Baton Rouge. It had fewer than 30 staffed beds at the time of its closure. Its emergency room used to have as many as 90,000 visits a year, with about 75 percent of those appropriate for primary care or urgent care settings, Barrett said. She added it wasn't uncommon for people to show up at 2 a.m., having packed a lunch for the wait, often for routine care.
"The surrounding community has lost an access with Earl K. Long closing," she said. The goal of the new configuration is to expand access to primary care, with better communication about the outpatient clinics and the retail pharmacy at the mid-city clinic. That pharmacy filled 3,600 prescriptions in the first week after the transition.
"The Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady have a legacy of caring and service. They saw this as a mission and ministry-related response," Barrett said.
Copyright © 2013 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
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