Barnes-Jewish Hospital

Description

About Us
BarnesJewish Hospital at Washington University Medical Center is the largest hospital in Missouri and the largest private employer in the St Louis region An affiliated teaching hospital of Washington University School of Medicine BarnesJewish Hospital has a 1800 member medical staff with many who are recognized as quotBest Doctors in Americaquot They are supported by residents interns and fellows in addition to nurses technicians and other healthcare professionals

Recognizing its excellent nursing care BarnesJewish Hospital was the first adult hospital in Missouri to be certified as a quotMagnet Hospitalquot by the American Nurses Credentialing Center ANCC The Magnet Award is the highest honor awarded for hospital nursing by the ANCC

BarnesJewish Hospital was created by the 1996 merger of Barnes Hospital and The Jewish Hospital of St Louis Each hospital brought a rich tradition of excellence Barnes Hospital opened in 1914 and became one of the first medical teaching centers in the United States Jewish Hospital opened in 1902 to care for St Louis growing immigrant population BarnesJewish Hospital is a member of BJC HealthCare one of the nations largest healthcare organizations

Mission Vision amp Values
Mission
We take exceptional care of people

By providing worldclass healthcare

By delivering care in a compassionate respectful and responsive way

By advancing medical knowledge and continuously improving our practices

By educating current and future generations of healthcare professionals

Vision
BarnesJewish Hospital along with our partner Washington University School of Medicine will be national leaders in medicine and the patient experience

Values
In service to the patient we value
Integrity

Compassion

Accountability

Respect

Excellence

History

BarnesJewish Hospital is the result of a merger of two of the most respected and renowned medical institutions in the United States Barnes Hospital and The Jewish Hospital of St Louis

Before the 1996 merger each institution had established a rich tradition of medical excellence and exceptional care Together they continue to build on that tradition making BarnesJewish Hospital the best American medicine has to offer

The Jewish Hospital of St Louis gives quality care to all

The Jewish Hospital of St Louis had been a vital force in caring for the community and furthering medical science since 1902

Although the hospital was built with funds raised by the Jewish community in St Louis the hospitals board of directors comprised of the citys Jewish leaders pledged that the Jewish Hospital of St Louis would afford medical and surgical care and nursing to sick or disabled persons of any creed or nationality Jewish Hospital was the institution the wave of new immigrants turned to for medical care

This dedication to the entire St Louis community resulted in an almost immediate expansion to the hospital then located on Delmar Boulevard In addition to a larger facility Jewish Hospital brought a number of medical innovations to St Louis Dr Maurice Frankenthal was the first surgeon in St Louis to use rubber gloves while operating The hospital also opened a dispensary downtown analogous to todays outpatient centers

Jewish Hospital established a Training School for Nurses with its first graduating class in 1905 It went on to educate more than 4000 nurses and its legacy lives on today in the BarnesJewish College of Nursing

The hospital board bought property on Kingshighway just two blocks from Barnes Hospital and St Louis Childrens Hospital to build a facility that would meet the everincreasing need for expansion

When it opened in 1927 the new hospital was hailed for its elegant design and functional innovations winning the Modern Hospital of the Year award from the American Hospital Association Its notable features included an audible nurse call system with speakers in each patient room openair balconies for treating patients with tuberculosis and stateoftheart operating rooms

In 1944 Jewish Hospital became one of the first in the country to use penicillin to treat patients and 1950 became the first in the city to have a radioisotope laboratory

Medical research has always been integral to Jewish Hospitals mission having a chief of research since 1919 Through the years Jewish Hospital physicians have been known especially for their research in gastrointestinal disorders rehabilitation and cardiology and cardiac surgery

In 1955 the medical and surgical divisions at Jewish Hospital received association status at the Washington University School of Medicine In 1963 the hospital was accepted as a major affiliate of Washington University

Jewish Hospital was the first to treat tumors at or near the skin surface with a combination of hypothermia and radiation treatments It became the regions first multidisciplinary center for the treatment of breast colorectal lymphoma thoracic and headandneck cancers

The hospital performed the first successful in vitro fertilization in Missouri in 1983 and opened St Louis first Multiple Birth Center offering medical support for women having more than one baby

Orthopedic surgeons at Jewish Hospital were renowned for taking care of the athletes on St Louis professional sports teams the baseball and football Cardinals and St Louis Blues hockey team

Jewish Hospitals tradition of care extended to its own staff It was the first hospital in the city to adopt a 40hour work week for its employees and offer them Social Security

Robert Barnes establishes a modern hospital

Robert Barnes died a wealthy man and a visionary Barnes had come to the boomtown St Louis in 1830 as a penniless orphan He worked his way from store clerk to bank president He leant a young immigrant Adolphus Busch money to start a brewery

Barnes married into a prominent local family but his heart was broken when the couples two children died in infancy Barnes died in 1892 two years after his wife With no heirs he left a bequest of 850000 to build a modern general hospital for sick and injured persons without distinction of creed

Barnes had named several of the citys most astute businessmen as his trustees and placed the proposed hospital under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church South a denomination known for its wise use of donations to aid the poor

By 1912 through investments the endowment had increased to more than 2 million The trustees bought property near Forest Park and hired the renowned architect Theodore Link best known for his design of St Louis Union Station to design the hospital building

Before ground was ever broken Barnes Hospital entered into a contract to be the teaching hospital for the Washington University School of Medicine ensuring that the hospital would be staffed by Washington University faculty and would serve as a home for medical education research and leadingedge medical care The affiliation between Washington University and Barnes Hospital was vital to fulfill the three principal functions of an ideal hospital care of the sick the adequate training of medical men of the future and the advancement of medical knowledge said Methodist Bishop Eugene Hendrix The affiliation influenced Link to add laboratories exam rooms and operating rooms to the hospitals design

Barnes Hospital opened Dec 7 1914 with 250 beds and 26 patients

From the hospitals first birth a baby girl born on Dec 9 and first surgery an appendectomy performed by surgeoninchief Dr Fred Murphy assisted Dr Ernest Sach the first fulltime professor of neurosurgery in the United States excellence in patient care and innovative treatment have marked the hospitals history

Staff members from Barnes Hospital St Louis Childrens Hospital and Washington University school of Medicine formed a medical hospital that served in France during World War I While in France Dr Vilray P Blair was helping to develop a new surgical discipline plastic surgery

Barnes Hospital dealt with the deadly Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918With more than 700 patients admitted during the peak of the outbreak Barnes had a death rate of less than four percent remarkable for the Spanish flu

In 1919 Dr Evarts A Graham became surgeoninchief Throughout his long career he basically established the discipline of chest surgery His innovations included in 1925 developing a method to image the gallbladder by xray paving the way for successful gallbladder surgery He also was the first surgeon to remove an entire lung successfully

In the 1920s Barnes was one of the first hospitals in the country to treat diabetic patients with insulin and received a gift of 10000 from John D Rockefeller to fund the treatment

An encephalitis epidemic hit St Louis in the summer of 1933 At that time no one had a clue to the cause incubation period duration or transmission mechanisms An entire floor at Barnes was opened for encephalitis patients This was the first opportunity for a teaching hospital to study the disease on such a large scale Researchers at Barnes and Washington University found a virus carried by the Culex mosquito caused the encephalitis As a result mosquito population control measures adopted nationwide helped reduce encephalitis outbreaks

Barnes became the first hospital in the country to install a complete electronic data processing system after administrator Dr Frank Bradley observed a similar system while serving as an advisor on the Los Alamos project

In the 1950s the hospital and staff expanded adding inpatient beds and specialized clinics During these years Barnes added another first first hospital in the country to paint the walls green thought to be more soothing and easier on the eyes than the traditional bright white

In the early 1960s Barnes became only the third hospital in the country to use the heartlung bypass machine during openheart surgery

The hospital built a cyclotron in 1963 to enhance radiologic imaging and radiation treatments at the hospital Also that year Dr William Newton performed the first kidney transplant in the Midwest

Seventeenstory Queeny Tower named for benefactor Edgar Monsanto Queeny opened in 1965 The Tower pioneered a new approach to patient care treating the patient as a whole person not merely a bundle of medical needs

During this time Barnes was also earning a national reputation for burn and trauma care with an innovative burn treatments and a dedicated burn center under the direction of Dr William Monafo

In 1975 Barnes became one of only five hospitals in the US performing bone marrow transplants and only the second center to have a wholebody EMI scanner By 1979 Barnes had become the fourth largest private hospital in the country

In 1980 the first positron emission tomography PET scanner was developed at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology and housed in the Barnes cardiac care unit where it was used to determine the extent of patients heart damage

The first heart and liver transplants were performed at Barnes Hospital in 1985 In 1987 the lung transplant team was created at Barnes Hospital

Two great hospitals become one

Challenges posed by managed care cuts in government spending and other factors led to new affiliations and mergers in the 1990s In 1992 Barnes formalized its affiliation agreement with the Jewish Hospital of St Louis In 1993 the two hospitals joined with Christian Health Services to form BJC Health Systems the first healthcare system in the country to integrate academically based hospitals and a system of community hospitals serving a broad urban suburban and rural area

In January 1996 Barnes and Jewish Hospitals merged to form BarnesJewish Hospital The merger built on the original affiliation by combining all of the attributes of the hospitals into a single organization led by on board of directors and one management team

In the meantime the medical advances continued Dr Ralph Clayman performed the nations first laparoscopic nephrectomy removal of a kidney through minimally invasive technique in 1990 Dr Susan E Mackinnon performed the countrys first nerve transplant on a 12yearold Indiana boy in 1993 And Dr Todd Howard Dr Jeffrey Lowell and Dr Surendra Shenoy performed the countrys first adult liver transplant using a living donor unrelated to the recipient in 1996 shortly after the BarnesJewish merger

In the new century BarnesJewish continues to lead the way in medicine Some examples


The opening of the Center for Advanced Medicine and the Siteman Cancer Center a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center

The thoracic surgery program continues to be the leading center in the country performing lung volume reduction surgery lungsparing cancer surgeries and running a clinic to manage pulmonary nodules

The orthopedic department nationallyrecognized for joint replacement and spinal surgeries is charged with caring for the elite athletes on St Louiss professional football and hockey teams the Rams and Blues

BarnesJewish Hospital made news worldwide with a procedure in which Dr Randall Paniello restored a young womans voice by building a new larynx from skin taken from her arm

BarnesJewish is one of only a handful of hospitals in the world offering dorsal rhysotomy surgery to improve the gait of adults with cerebral palsy

These examples illustrate why BarnesJewish Hospital and its Washington University physicians are consistently ranked among the best in the nation by US News amp World Report