St. Joseph's Hospital Selected to Participate in Chest Pain Short Stay Project

ST. PAUL, MN -- (MARKET WIRE) -- December 13, 2006 -- St. Joseph's Hospital has been invited to join a small-group, health care collaborative focused on improving the accuracy of patient billing while maintaining the integrity of care provided. This 15-month initiative is being supported and implemented by Stratis Health, Minnesota's Medicare quality improvement organization.

St. Joseph's Hospital -- a Twin Cities leader in comprehensive cardiovascular services and a recipient of Solucient's Top 100 Cardiovascular Hospital award for 2006 -- will join less than a dozen hospitals throughout the state to test various mechanisms for ensuring that chest pain patients (including Medicare beneficiaries) receive the proper treatment in the most cost-effective manner.

Collaborative participants will have autonomy in how they create and test processes and protocols to establish best practices; hospitals may look at opportunities within a number of departments for overall improvement in the patient care experience. Results will be shared with all Minnesota hospitals early in 2008 via a WebEx educational session.

Colleen Nadeau, Director of Cardiovascular Services, HealthEast hospitals, says, "St. Joseph's is committed to exceeding performance benchmarks. From the emergency department and our physician/nurse team to the utilization review staff, we will use our cardiovascular program successes as a guide to identify all options for achieving high-quality, cost-efficient outcomes for chest pain patients."

St. Joseph's Hospital is Minnesota's first hospital and was founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1853. Located in downtown St. Paul, it is the largest of the HealthEast hospitals with 401 licensed beds. The hospital has a 24-hour emergency room and provides a comprehensive range of medical, surgical, diagnostic, and rehabilitative services, as well as mental health and chemical dependency treatment programs.

Contact Information: Contact: Lynn Sadoff Senior Public Relations Specialist 651-326-3590 Email Contact