St. Patrick Hospital to Form New Obstetrics Unit
MISSOULA, Mont. — Providence St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula is teaming up with obstetrics and gynecology physicians at Western Montana Clinic (WMC), also based in Missoula. The new program is the result of months of planning and preparation for the expanded women’s health program at St. Patrick Hospital.
For more than 90 years, WMC has been providing health care in Missoula, and the OB/GYN physician group has a combined 51 years of experience delivering specialized care to women in Western Montana. The physician group will also include midwifery services.
“In the changing health care landscape, expanding collaborations and partnerships improves access for the residents of Western Montana,” said WMC President Pam Cutler in a statement. “Providing excellent health care is a priority for both of our organizations, and the offer to partner with SPH in creating a new quality-focused program has been a natural fit and an incredible opportunity.”
WMC has been an important component to the development of St. Pat’s Women’s Health Program. The program will feature a newly constructed seven-bed labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum suite with a dedicated cesarean section operating room. WMC physicians will be working with Providence Health & Services and Swedish Medical Center in Missoula.
The physician group plans to deliver babies in the new unit of the hospital, and the group will also relocate their outpatient practice to the downtown campus in the summer of 2015. The group includes surgeons who will bring daVinci robotic surgery to Montana. The WMC gynecologists will continue to expand on their region, as well.
Leading the Providence Women’s Health Program is new regional director, Kathy Schaefer. Schaefer has experience running two hospital campuses averaging more than 400 deliveries a month.
“The leadership and physicians of Western Montana Clinic have been the ideal and integral piece to our larger program structure,” said Jeff Fee, chief executive of Providence Health & Services Western Montana, in a statement. “They are Missoula community members who, with the changing marketplace dynamic, considered, as St. Pat’s did, this move necessary to maintain OB/GYN excellence in the future.”
St. Patrick Hospital and Western Montana Clinic will continue to work closely and strengthen relationships with other health care organizations, providers, clinics and strategic partners to ensure patients can receive a full range of services from one, coordinated health care system.
Construction of the unit is scheduled to be completed in June 2015, with the first babies to be delivered in the unit by August.