St. Alexius Medical Center says it works to maintain healing and hospitality.

For more than 120 years, St. Alexius Medical Center has maintained a tradition of healing and hospitality.

Based in Bismarck, N.D., the Catholic healthcare provider serves patients in the western part of its home state, eastern Montana and northern South Dakota through four hospital locations.

President and CEO Andrew L. Wilson says St. Alexius has let its service be guided by the rule of St. Benedict — "Let all be received as Christ" — through all of its operations. The hospital is sponsored by the Sisters of St. Benedict of the Annunciation Monastery. "We have a very, very strong Benedictine sponsor group," Wilson says. "They really carry forth the Benedictine philosophy." In addition, St. Alexius is a founding member of the Prime Care health group, a network of doctors and hospitals based in Bismarck.

Founded on Care
St. Alexius was founded in 1885 by a group of Benedictine sisters from St. Joseph, Minn. The sisters came to Bismarck to open a girls' school, and opened St. Alexius when they saw the need for healthcare in the city, as well.

That year, the sisters purchased the Lamborn Hotel in Bismarck and converted it into a hospital for $30,000. St. Alexius' first location had 15 beds and a coal stove for each room. It admitted 65 people in its first year.

Famous Hospital
According to St. Alexius, this was the first community hospital in the Dakota Territory. In 1915, St. Alexius moved to its current location in Bismarck.

Through the years, the hospital has provided care for famous patients, including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and John F. Kennedy. Today, Wilson says, St. Alexius receives visits from more than 450 patients daily.

Quality Focused
To care for its patients properly, the hospital has made quality its No. 1 priority. "We're proud of and spend a lot of focus on our outcomes here," Wilson states.

The organization has been recognized for this emphasis in the last few years, Wilson says, by Health Grades Inc., the leading independent healthcare ratings company. "We've received the Health Grades' Clinical Excellence in Patient Safety award for the last three years in [a] row," Wilson declares, noting that only 41 hospitals in the United States have been awarded with this honor.

In its ratings for 2007, Health Grades awarded St. Alexius with five-star ratings for clinical excellence in coronary bypass surgery, coronary interventional procedures, back and neck surgery, and treatment of heart failure, chronic obtrusive pulmonary disease. St. Alexius was also ranked by Health Grades in the top 10 percent of all hospitals nationally, and No. 1 in North Dakota for cardiac and pulmonary care.

Rewarding Work
Wilson joined St. Alexius earlier this year, after working with various hospitals and healthcare systems. Most recently, Wilson served as the president of a managed-care entity in Atlanta. He notes that he has found his time at St. Alexius satisfactory not only on a business level, but also from the work the hospital has completed to improve the health status of the community. "That's really rewarding," Wilson states.

Connections in Care
Wilson says St. Alexius is distinguished by the level of skill found in its employees. He explains that its employees have been "trained to the top programs around the country." In addition, the hospital's physicians have formed connections with its communities. Its doctors, have participated in organizations, including chambers of commerce and civic groups.

Because St. Alexius serves a region with less medical options available than major cities, its patients develop a dependence on its doctors, he says. St. Alexius also has numerous outreach programs with physicians at clinics. "We have a very well-established telemedicine network," he says, noting that the network links St. Alexius with rural communities.

Problem Solvers
Wilson says a key part of St. Alexius' operations is shared governance among its nurses. "They work in various teams to focus on resources utilization and quality improvement activities at the hospital," Wilson explains. "They're part of the problem-solving process." In addition, its nurses work together with all of St. Alexius' medical centers, often bridging the gaps between departments.

According to the hospital, its nurses' performance is of such a high caliber that, recently, St. Alexius became the first and only magnet-designated hospital in North Dakota. Wilson says St. Alexius plans years in advance with its facilities and budgets for potential changes in new technologies.

"We can be prepared to embrace those as they move through the approval process, so we are able to put those new technologies online here for the betterment of our patients," he says.

"We try to have a five-year moving window of looking forward," Wilson continues. "Examples of some of the technology we've embraced as a result of long-range planning have been [positron emission tomography/computer axial tomography] and a variety of interventional radiology and minimally-invasive cardiac modalities."  HCW