Fairview Community Health and Wellness Hub cut the ribbon on a new health facility at the old St. Joseph’s Hospital. Fairview Health Services president and CEO James Hereford look forward to a successful healthcare facility.
Reimagining the old St. Joseph’s Hospital
The new Fairview Community Health and Wellness Hub has started to operate to provide for those in need. According to MSN, the center offers various services, including mental and health counseling, senior services, and clinical trials for new therapies.
Fairview officials consider it a "complete reimagining" of the old St. Joseph's Hospital into a more community-focused center for preventive, comprehensive, and primary care services.
UnitedHealthcare partnered with Fairview to provide fresh food to needy patients through the “Communities of Health” program. The Edina-based insurer invested $1 million this summer. Throughout the initiative of UnitedHealthcare’s Minnesota health plans, health outcomes will be monitored.
The clinic aims to supply people without insurance and denied coverage to patients more holistically than traditional primary care, partly by using "social determinants of health" to match patients to counseling and social services.
St. Joseph Hospital Closed
Last year, a 150-year-old St. Joseph Hospital shut down. At that time, there was a worrying growth in the number of individuals with mental illness. The hospital closed due to financial losses.
The Minnesota Legislature enacted laws in June 2021 requiring advance announcement and a court meeting before closing a hospital or hospital campus, relocating services, or ceasing to provide certain services, according to the source.
In April 2022, a public hearing about the hospital closure was scheduled. The Minnesota Department of Health's Health Regulation Division. Provided a platform for the greater Saint Paul community to talk about the closure and resettlement of patients admitted and other supportive services from the former HealthEast St. Joseph's Hospital, which will take effect on July 1, 2022.
Fairview's transition resulted in the loss of 900 jobs. Officials point out that this represents under 3 percent of the entire workers, and the health system had 1,200 open positions. Employees were urged to transfer as much as possible. A quarter of the positions being eliminated are union jobs, most of which are nursing.
St. Joseph's Hospital Provided Services Amid the Pandemic
In May last year, a report shared that St. Joseph's Hospital COVID-19 care was the only inpatient service available when the hospital lost funds. As a result, the employees began to look for new job opportunities before the hospital closed.
According to Dr. Andrew Olson, St. Joseph Hospital offered their COVID-19 services as long as needed, but the situation did not permit it to last longer.
In April of last year, the hospital had one of Minnesota's highest COVID-19 patients. St. Joseph's had up to 68 beds at the beginning of the year but had to close two COVID-19 units that were no longer required as Minnesota grew from its most serious pandemic wave in late 2020.
