Shreveport in Lead Role in Health Care, Research
Published Mar 07, 2008
LSU Health Sciences Center near downtown Shreveport is a teaching hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center.
It’s no secret that Shreveport is the health-care hub for the Louisiana-Arkansas-Texas triangle. But it’s also becoming known beyond the region as a major center for patient care and research, thanks not only to a large number of hospitals, but also to the capability of treating virtually any kind of ailment at nationally recognized facilities.
Shreveport offers everything from acute-care facilities and clinics owned by large health systems, to the nation’s oldest Shriners hospital – a short-term, 45-bed facility that provides pediatric orthopedic surgery and related services at no charge for children from infancy to 18 years of age.
General care facilities are well represented by the Willis-Knighton Health System and the CHRISTUS Schumpert Health System, each operating several hospitals in and around Shreveport and Bossier City.
The latest addition to the CHRISTUS Schumpert family of nonprofit hospitals is Sutton Children’s Medical Center, a 106-bed facility that opened in May 2006. It is named for PGA golfer Hal Sutton of Shreveport, who led efforts to establish the hospital after his agent’s 7-year-old daughter died from viral meningitis.
The system’s flagship hospital is 601-bed CHRISTUS Schumpert-St. Mary Place, served by more than 600 physicians representing all major specialties.
Two other CHRISTUS Schumpert affiliates, Highland and Bossier, joined the system in 1999. Highland is a 160-bed acute-care hospital that includes birthing suites, surgical care, coronary care, orthopedics, emergency services and a rehabilitation unit; Bossier pro vides in-patient rehabilitation for a range of conditions varying from strokes and burns to neuromuscular disorders and spinal cord injuries.
Another affiliate, CHRISTUS Schumpert Line Avenue, offers outpatient rehabilitation and sports medicine services.
In all, the system has more than 750 physicians and about 3,000 employees on staff.
Willis-Knighton is a locally owned, not-for-profit health system with nearly 5,000 employees. In 2006, health-care analyst Solucient ranked Willis-Knighton as one of the nation’s top-100 hospitals – a designation that followed its recognition as one of the 100 best cardiovascular hospitals in the country.
“Our bottom line is our mission state ment: to continuously improve the health and well being of the people we serve,” says Willis-Knighton spokesman Charlie Cavell. “We’re very visible. We’re known as THE community hospital.”
More babies are delivered at Willis-Knighton than any other private hospital in the area. Willis-Knighton also oper ates a center for women’s health at one of its four area hospitals, the Heart Institute and Heart Hospital for technologically advanced heart care, and a cardiac rehabilitation center.
LINKS WITH LSU
It also was the first private hospital in the state to team with a public academic medical center, that of Louisiana State University. The institutions offer organ transplant programs for the liver, kidney and pancreas, and they operate a cancer treatment center.
Located in the InterTech Science Park near downtown Shreveport, LSU Health Sciences Center is a teaching hospital and a Level 1 Trauma Center. The latter designation means it meets stringent standards for caring for injured patients, including 24-hour coverage by general surgeons and prompt availability of care specialties such as orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, radiology, internal medicine and critical care. Other capabilities include cardiac care, hand care, pedi atric care, microvascular surgery and hemodialysis.
Teaching isn’t limited to the university hospital. LSU medical students also practice at Overton Brooks VA Medical Center, which serves 131,000 veterans in the tri-state area and handles 331,000 outpatient appointments each year.
In addition, LSU leases a building from the Biomedical Research Foundation, where researchers work on cures for all manner of disease, from cancer to Alzheimer’s. Research grants have increased fourfold since the building opened in 1994.
Story by Jeannie A. Naujeck
Photo by Wes Aldridge
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