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“In 15 years, we grew from 407 staffed beds to 746 staffed beds, an 83 percent increase. However, our inpatient discharge volume in the same period grew 154 percent. In some ways, it’s a good problem to have, but it can create difficulty for people who want to access the academic medical center difference. As a regional and national referral center, our challenge is to build beds fast enough to keep up with patient demand. Our hospital is routinely full, establishing record highs for daily census on an almost monthly basis.
This growth creates issues for patients who need access to our specialized services for heart disease, neurosciences and cancer. Almost as critical is our need for operating rooms, as our physicians’ specialized surgical skills are sought locally and from hospitals throughout the Midwest.
We are expanding capacity through a variety of means. On the main campus, we are building a new patient tower and we just expanded our construction scope to add four more patient floors. At the same time, we expanded off-campus facilities for ambulatory care and outpatient and inpatient surgical procedures. While these facilities have given us additional rooms, they have also led to more patient growth as we expand our locations into new sections of metropolitan Kansas City.
We will not sacrifice the laser-focus on quality care that led to our explosive and sustained growth over the past 15 years. But, we know our responsibility is to give patients convenient access to academic medicine with a highly satisfying experience and the best possible outcomes. We will continue to use traditional expansion, improved processes and a focus on quality to meet this challenge.”
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