St. John’s Clinic finalizes plans for new Rolla clinic
Sept. 14, 2007

St. John’s Clinic will break ground in December for a three-story Clinic facility in Rolla to serve patients in the Phelps, Pulaski, Dent, Crawford, Maries and Texas county region. The 108,000 square-foot facility will be built on a 25-acre tract of land off Martin Spring Drive, just east of Zeno’s Motel and Steakhouse in the 1600 block.

According to Dr. Randall Huss, president of St. John’s Clinic Rolla Division, the location offers close proximity to Interstate 44 and to Phelps County Regional Medical Center, where many St. John’s Clinic physicians have privileges. The location on Rolla’s west side in conjunction with proposed development of a Rolla fifth I-44 exchange will offer significant stimulus to this project and the expected commercial development in this area.

The facility will consolidate St. John’s Clinic services now provided at three Rolla offices – at 1601 N. Bishop and two on West 10th Street at 910 and 1100.

The additional  43,000 square feet will allow for new services such as physical and occupational therapy, sleep laboratory, endoscopy, pain management procedures, home medical supply and an ambulatory surgery center, in addition to expansion and upgrading of existing services such as medical imaging, laboratory and pharmacy. The facility will also provide expanded space for all our existing Rolla primary care and specialty providers and recruitment of new needed providers and specialties into the Rolla medical community.

"It is important for St. John's Clinic to expand services in the Rolla area because of the enormous growth we’ve seen in this region," said Dr. Huss. The clinic will have space for up to 50 primary care and specialty physicians, with adequate land for future expansion when needed.

 “This facility is designed to be the ambulatory health care facility of the future and will be like nothing seen to this point anywhere in this part of the country,” Dr. Huss explained. “It will accommodate new more efficient, patient-centered workflows and integration of patient care services made possible by the capabilities of our new electronic health record by Epic Systems."

Epic Systems is currently being implemented throughout all St. John’s Health System facilities as part of a Sisters of Mercy Health System initiative to link all parts of the healthcare delivery system through strategic application of information technology.  

 “This will really elevate health care to the next level and allow us to further integrate information systems with providers and services to create truly coordinated health care for the ultimate benefit of our patients.”

Currently, St. John’s Clinic - Rolla division providers take care of 190,000 patient encounters annually, with physician offices in Rolla, Cuba, Steelville, St. James, Salem and St. Robert. Physician specialties currently include: family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, sports medicine, geriatrics, general surgery, radiology, cardiology, maternal/fetal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, hematology/oncology, neurology, pulmonary and sleep medicine, orthopedics, podiatry, and urgent care.

The Power of Integration

St. John’s Clinic is a part of St. John’s Health System, the nation’s top-ranked integrated health system. Successful integration of care and information management utilizing resources from all parts of our integrated health system is a key to improved clinical outcomes, Dr. Huss said.

 “This high level of integration is one reason St. John’s Clinic was chosen as one of the 10 physician group practices in the country selected to participate in a national Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) demonstration project, and a big reason for our success as one of only two of the medical groups to achieve the target performance in all quality indicators for the first reporting year of the project.”

For media information, contact St. John’s Media Relations at 417-820-2426 or cora.scott@mercy.net