Joplin hospital opens center focusing on women’s health

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November 17, 2008

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Mon Nov 17, 2008, 08:41 PM CST

By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

When Lori Buchele scheduled her doctor’s appointment, she didn’t count on being pampered.

But Buchele, a Southwest City resident, was one of the first patients to use Freeman Health System’s new Women’s Health Center that opened Monday in Joplin.

Everything about the $10 million renovation of the nearly 52,000-square-foot shell building next to the Joplin Family Y South was geared specifically toward women. From the pink rose carpeting to the fluffy bathrobes that replace paper gowns, the building is by women and for women.

“Everything about this place is just classy,” Buchele said. “It’s really different than any hospital I’ve ever been in.”

The new center pulls all of Freeman’s previously spread-out women’s health services under one roof. The services include mammography, laboratory services, plastic surgery, OB/GYN physicians, perinatology and obstetrics. The center also has a gift store specializing in women’s products.

It combines the Women’s Pavilion formerly in the Freeman Hospital East building with several physicians’ offices and services previously offered in the Freeman Hospital West building.

Some of the special touches built into the center are private dressing rooms, spa robes, digital mammography machines, artwork by local photographers, decor with a theme of plants and pearls throughout the building, soothing music, and lots of pink.

All the extras are worth it, according to Dana Hutson, Women’s Pavilion supervisor, who said women are the gatekeepers of health care who make 80 percent to 90 percent of the medical decisions for their families.

“If a woman is happy with the experience, then, when her husband is sick, she will probably encourage him to go to the doctor,” Hutson said.

Julie Kuykendall, a mammography technician at the new Women’s Health Center, said the special touch is about added sensitivity in dealing with a woman’s most sensitive issues and areas.

“In this environment, they feel better, more taken care of,” Kuykendall said.

Hutson said that to re-create the entire women’s health atmosphere, it took visiting seven women’s health centers across the country. She said the University of Kansas Medical Center offered examples of the “wow factor” for which Freeman was looking.

“Men and women want different things from their health care,” said Debi Koelkebeck, vice president of retail/clinical operations for Freeman, who oversaw the women’s center renovation project. “You put most men in a hospital, and they want to know how to get out. But while a woman is waiting, she is paying attention to the wallpaper, the carpet, the corners.”

Koelkebeck said Freeman decided to invest in women’s health-care services because the need in the area is increasing as more of the baby boomer generation takes advantage of increased services. Hutson said the Women’s Pavilion’s business was steady last year, but she expects a big jump this year in patients. She said the new health center’s digital mammography unit is already booked with 60 women a day through the middle of December.

That need for women’s health services goes beyond Joplin’s borders. Pam Barlet, director of program development and community relations for McCune-Brooks Regional Hospital in Carthage, said more women are using the hospital’s health services now than ever.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in utilization of those services in all areas: mammography, bone density, digital radiology, our new birthing unit,” Barlet said.

Barlet said it’s not that women deserve special treatment in health care, but that keeping women healthy affects the health of the rest of the community.

“We’ve got to keep women healthy because they are the health-care givers in their families,” she said. “As we raise the level of the awareness of health care for women, it all rolls down from there to the rest of the community. That’s why there’s a focus on women’s health.”

While efforts to obtain comment from St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin were unsuccessful Monday afternoon, the hospital did list women’s health services as a major focus of the future in a statement last week.

Freeman officials are looking at several options for the former Women’s Pavilion at 932 E. 34th St. They plan to use the OB/GYN offices left vacant by the move to the new center in place of an office building Freeman was planning to build in two to three years.

Openings

The Women’s Pavilion, the Pink Door Boutique, Women’s Healthcare Associates and Southwest Women’s Center all opened Monday to the public in Freeman’s new Women’s Health Center. OB/GYN Associates and Freeman Plastic Surgery Associates will open in the center Nov. 24, and Ozark Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Freeman Perinatology Center will open Dec. 8.