On July 5, SSM Health announced that it officially assumed ownership of SLUCare Physicians Group from Saint Louis University. This statement is an effort to amended Saint Louis’s healthcare web by formally combining the aesculapian expertise and signifier of the 2 groups. SSM Health, SLUCare Physician Group, and Saint Louis University School of Medicine person partnered for decades to present apical rated healthcare to the community. Now, done afloat integrating, the 2 groups anticipation to supply the assemblage with much functionality and accessibility to care. 

Three months into the merge, the results proceed to unfold. According to the announcement, patients volition acquisition improved entree to healthcare successful presumption of accessibility to “highly specialized procedures”, “clinical trials” and “life-saving treatments.” The integration besides includes an concern successful the aesculapian schoolhouse to “expand objective research,” “medical training,” and “education” crossed each of Saint Louis. 

“In this aboriginal stage, we person not seen evident improved superior attraction access,” Dr. Christine Jacobs, Dean of SLU School of Medicine who has worked connected the SLUCare and SSM Team, said. 

Still, she said the historical concern betwixt the 2 organizations has near the citizens of Saint Louis hopeful for the aboriginal of their healthcare. 

The narration betwixt the 2 groups extends backmost much than a century. In 1903 SSM Health’s founding congregation granted SLU School of Medicine students entree to their infirmary for acquisition and training. After 30 years of a productive narration (in which SLU’s School of Nursing was besides established), SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital was opened connected South Grand Blvd successful 1933.

From 1933 to 2015, the infirmary was sold to a assortment of organizations, Tenet Health Corporation being 1 of largest. In a crook of events, SSM Health erstwhile again acquired the infirmary and renamed it SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital. 

However, a merge similar this 1 was followed with immoderate apprehension. Jacobs said that she was acrophobic that the existing module would not motion with SSM Health post-merge. Now, a fewer months later, she said she could not beryllium happier for the future. As the physicians had to “make a conscious decision” to articulation SSM Health by re-signing their contract, she said, “SSM Health illustrated a beardown endorsement to faculty.” 

The integration of SLUCare into SSM Health has created 1 of the astir broad world and community-based doc groups successful the region, with implicit 1,200 providers. 

“Collaboration is stronger than it has ever been. Referrals person accrued successful quantity and patients are excited to person higher levels of care,” Dr. Sameer Sidiqui, Chief of Surgery astatine SLU School of Medicine, said. 

 Dr. Fred P. Pestello, president of SLU, said successful a statement connected April 28, “This concern volition bolster our corporate extremity to amended the prime of beingness crossed generations and cultures portion addressing the societal determinants of wellness that forestall our neighbors from surviving beingness to the fullest.” 

The healthcare disparities successful Saint Louis are not unsocial to the metropolis but are intensified by 2 superior factors: part betwixt the metropolis and region and important radical segregation. The metropolitan country is the 6th astir segregated country successful the United States. An illustration of this is the Delmar Divide, wherein northbound of Delmar Boulevard’s colonisation is 98% Black portion the southbound is 70% white. 

Sidiqui said the committedness of this caller statement is simply a beacon of anticipation to mend immoderate of these century-long issues. 

“The wide-scale healthcare integration volition not lone bring citizens of Saint Louis unneurotic but enactment the metropolis connected the representation arsenic having 1 of the champion healthcare systems successful the country,” Sidiqui said.