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Staff photo / R. Michael Simple
Cathy Ronci, St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital’s director of nursing, shows one the rooms last month in the facility’s new 17-bed intermediate care unit.
YOUNGSTOWN — Mercy Health has a plan — a long-term vision — on addressing the health care needs of the Mahoning Valley.
The COVID pandemic forced the health system to place that strategy on short-term hold. But Mercy is back on course, according to Kathy Harley, president of St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.
“As COVID leveled out, we could all get back to the business of strategic health care and not fire and brimstone health care,” she said.
Last month’s opening of a 17-bed intermediate care unit at the Youngstown Hospital illustrates Mercy’s faith in its efforts.
“The majority of the patients that we’re seeing (are) coming from the emergency room department,” said Cathy Ronci, the hospital’s director of nursing. “They are also getting downgraded from our intensive care units.”
At first, a limit was placed on the number of patients accepted in the new unit.
“So we are at 10 patients right now since we opened to give the nurses an opportunity to learn the department making sure patient safety is the No. 1 priority,” Ronci said. “And then we’re going up to 17.”
Harley said she is pleased with how the unit, which formerly housed Select Speciality physicians and staff, turned out.
“(We) did a beautiful face-lift — new equipment, new beds,” she said. “So that’s a great start, and we’ve already felt the decompression in the (emergency department) about getting more people out of the (emergency department) quicker and up to that intermediate care unit.”
The new unit complements Mercy Health’s string of health care facilities it has opened recently and plans to open in the future.
Mercy Health Rehabilitation Hospital, located at 3180 Belmont Ave., opened in November. The newly constructed, 66,000-square-foot hospital offers 60 beds. Mercy Health is working with Lifepoint Rehabilitation, a business unit of Lifepoint Health, which will manage daily operations.
“At the same time, we were working with Lifepoint on the second initiative, which was a behavioral health hospital,” Harley said.
In another joint venture, Mercy Health and Lifepoint Health announced plans in 2023 to build and operate a 72-bed inpatient behavioral health hospital scheduled to open in December. It will be located next to Mercy Health Rehabilitation Hospital.
“And we knew we needed more inpatient beds,” Harley said. “You don’t turn these things. No, no, this was a very strategic plan that’s been in the works for literally years.”
With the improvements and changes, Mercy Health’s commitment to quality never wavered.
“We have raised all our scores in quality overall,” Harley said. “We are able to meet the needs of these communities in their complex needs. This isn’t just a community hospital. We’re set in a community setting.
“But we’re not doing standard community care.”
Ronci said that it’s important for the community to know Mercy Health hasn’t wavered in its service.
“We want to make sure that there’s some place to go when people need help, and that’s definitely with health care.” she said. “It’s so needed. So I can’t say enough about the ministry that I work for. I’m so proud that they’re devoting things like these, opening up units and making sure that we have places for people in the patients to go to in the community.
“We do great things here in this building, and we’re going to continue to do great things.”