Mercy Medical Center (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Mercy Medical Center |
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| Sisters of Mercy | |
Mercy Campus
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| Geography | |
| Location | Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States |
| Organization | |
| Funding | Non-profit hospital |
| Network | Independent, MercyCare Clinics |
| Services | |
| Emergency department | Level III trauma center |
| Helipad | IA72 |
| Beds | 450 |
| History | |
| Founded | 1900 |
Mercy Medical Center is a Catholic hospital located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is one of two main hospitals in the city. Mercy often ranks as one of the best hospitals in Iowa. It is a non-profit hospital that provides care for sudden, serious health problems. It also has a Level III trauma center, which means it can handle most medical emergencies.
Mercy Cedar Rapids is an independent hospital. This means it is not directly connected to other Mercy hospitals across the country. Besides the main hospital, Mercy also runs clinics for outpatients and urgent care. These clinics are a partnership with local doctors.
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Understanding Mercy Medical Center
Hospitals can be described in different ways. Here's how Mercy Medical Center fits into some common categories.
What is Acute Care?
Mercy Medical Center is an acute-care hospital. This means it focuses on treating patients with sudden illnesses or injuries that need immediate attention. It's different from a long-term care facility or a hospital that specializes in just one type of health problem. Even though it focuses on acute care, Mercy also has special wards for adults needing mental health care, a rehabilitation ward for recovery, and a nursing home called Hallmar.
What is a Trauma Center?
Mercy has a Level III trauma center. This means it is ready to handle almost all kinds of medical emergencies. For very serious or special cases, like severe burns or complex problems for young children, Mercy can send patients by helicopter to the University of Iowa's Level I trauma center. Mercy is also the special emergency room for radiation cases, such as those that might come from the Duane Arnold Energy Center. Mercy was the first hospital in the area to open a trauma center.
Is it a Community Hospital?
The idea of a "community hospital" can be a bit tricky for Mercy. Some definitions say a community hospital is not owned by the government. By this rule, Mercy is a community hospital. However, other definitions say community hospitals don't have teaching programs. This might not fit Mercy, because it has a program where new doctors get special training. Another way to think about it is that community hospitals serve a local area, are run by local leaders, and help the local economy. Mercy fits this idea well, as it has stayed independent from big hospital chains.
Why is it Non-Profit?
Mercy Medical Center is a non-profit organization. It was started by the Sisters of Mercy, a religious group, and follows their rules for charity. This means that any money the hospital earns goes back into improving the hospital and its services, rather than being paid out to owners or shareholders. However, Mercy does run some clinics, called MercyCare clinics, that operate as for-profit businesses. Doctors and other healthcare providers at these clinics are partners in this for-profit part.
Serving City and Countryside
Mercy serves the city area of Cedar Rapids. But it also helps people in seven nearby counties, which are mostly rural (countryside) areas. Mercy even offers special heart care, dialysis (for kidney problems), and chemotherapy (cancer treatment) services at smaller hospitals in those rural counties.
Staying Independent
Mercy leadership has chosen to keep the hospital independent. This means they have said no to offers to merge with bigger hospital groups. Mercy remains locally controlled, which is becoming rare for hospitals in the United States.
Teaching New Doctors
Mercy offers a program where new doctors can get more training after medical school. This is called a residency program. Also, the MercyCare clinics often welcome medical students from the University of Iowa's medical school to learn there.
How Many Beds?
Mercy Medical Center is allowed to have 450 beds. However, in 2017, the hospital actually had 243 beds ready for patients. This makes Mercy the seventh largest hospital in Iowa, out of 130 hospitals. For comparison, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics has 728 beds, and St. Luke's Cedar Rapids has 345 beds.
Catholic Healthcare Guidelines
As a Catholic organization, Mercy Medical Center follows the rules of the Catholic Church regarding healthcare. These rules guide how doctors and staff provide care. They especially affect decisions about care at the end of life.
Catholic hospitals in the U.S. follow special guidelines called the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. These rules are set by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. They prevent services that go against Catholic teachings. Doctors at Mercy must follow these rules, even if they or their patients are not Catholic.
End-of-Life Care Decisions
When it comes to end-of-life care, the Catholic guidelines generally do not allow removing life support like feeding tubes or IV nutrition. Even if a patient has a special document saying they don't want these things, Mercy and other Catholic hospitals might not be able to follow those wishes. In such cases, the patient might be moved to another hospital, like nearby St. Luke's Hospital.
Mercy has a special committee that helps doctors decide if life support is needed. These decisions are based on two main Catholic rules. One rule says that a patient's end-of-life wishes will be honored, unless they go against Catholic teaching. Another rule says that Catholic hospitals must generally provide artificial nutrition and hydration to patients who cannot eat or drink on their own.
Sometimes, if a patient's illness will cause death quickly, nutrition and hydration are not the main issue. But conflicts can happen with conditions like dementia or Alzheimer's disease, or if a patient is in a persistent vegetative state. This is because the main health problem might not kill the patient, but removing food and water would.
Mercy Medical Center's History
The Sisters of Mercy opened Mercy Hospital in 1900. It started as a small, 15-bed hospital in a house that was changed to fit patients. In less than a year, the hospital became too small, and the Sisters began looking for a new place.
In 1901, the Sisters bought land that is still part of Mercy's campus today.
The new hospital opened in 1903. It was a five-story building with 100 beds. This 1903 building served patients until 1971, when it was taken down because it no longer met hospital rules.
Mercy's campus kept growing to meet the needs of the community. Here are some of the major building projects:
- 1923: The Sisters added a new five-story building to the 1903 hospital. This increased Mercy's capacity to 200 beds and added new surgery and maternity areas.
- 1944: Mercy used money from the government to build a nursing school next to the hospital. After the nursing school closed in 1971, the building was used for doctor training and housing for the Sisters. The big flood in 2008 badly damaged this building, and Mercy took it down in 2009.
- 1956: The Hall family opened the Hall Radiation Center on Mercy property. Mercy operated it. In 1977, the Hall Foundation gave the radiation center and the Hallmar nursing home to Mercy.
- 1959: Mercy opened another expansion to help with overcrowding. This new building had six floors and was air-conditioned. It included a bigger lab, delivery rooms, eight operating rooms, a large cafeteria, and 100 more beds.
- 1960: The Halls also started Hallmar nursing home, a 26-bed facility on the Mercy campus. In 1967, Hallmar was updated and grew to 60 beds.
- March 1971: Mercy opened the first trauma center in the area.
- September 1971: Mercy opened an eight-story tower for acute care.
- 1974: Three more floors were added to the tower, making it nine stories tall above ground.
- Late 1980s: Mercy built a Women's Center, made the flower and gift shop bigger, and added a new chapel near the main lobby.
- 2002: Mercy opened the Lundy Pavilion. This made the medical center 25% larger and added 500 more parking spaces that were easier to access.
- 2009: Mercy added the 8th & 8th medical office building. This was a four-story building with 72,000 square feet, located next to the hospital.
- 2012: Mercy opened the Hall-Perrine Cancer Center. This was a four-story building with 86,000 square feet. It had 27 chairs or beds for chemotherapy (cancer treatment) and 16 exam rooms.
Local Competition
Mercy was the second hospital in Cedar Rapids. St. Luke's was established earlier, in 1884. The local newspaper has described the relationship between the two hospitals as "shifting from cooperative to scrappy for decades." More recently, both Mercy and St. Luke's have also faced competition from a local group of doctors and from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
Mercy vs. St. Luke's
Mercy and St. Luke's have always had a mix of working together and competing. The two hospitals are only five blocks apart. They are both key parts of Cedar Rapids' MedQuarter District. These hospitals serve the Cedar Rapids area, which has about 260,000 people, plus seven nearby counties.
The hospitals actively compete for patients. This happens both at the main hospitals and at their outpatient clinics. Mercy works with doctors to own the MercyCare clinic chain. These clinics and Mercy Medical Center's services compete with St. Luke's, which is part of the UnityPoint Health system. Mercy and UnityPoint push each other to offer new services and better quality care. Then, they advertise their services and achievements.
This competition started even before Mercy opened. Some people who supported St. Luke's didn't want a second hospital. But others said the city needed a new hospital because St. Luke's was often full.
At times, the hospitals have worked together a lot. In the 1950s and part of the 1970s, they even planned which services each hospital would offer. They tried to divide specialties to save money. For example, Mercy led the local cancer treatment efforts, while St. Luke's focused on mental health care for patients staying overnight. They also worked together on fundraising campaigns in 1956 and 1969.
However, even during these times, competition would sometimes break out. For example, Mercy opened the area's first trauma center in 1970. In 1971, Mercy's leader said that St. Luke's would only need to offer first aid. But St. Luke's was already planning to expand its emergency services to have doctors on duty 24 hours a day, and soon after, it opened its own trauma center.
The debate between the two hospitals often comes down to cost, quality, and their religious missions.
Cost People on different sides of the debate disagree about whether having two hospitals makes healthcare more or less expensive. One former leader at St. Luke's thought that merging the hospitals could save $30 million each year. But others say that the competition between the hospitals has actually lowered costs for insurance companies and patients.
Quality Competition also pushes the hospitals to improve their services and win awards for quality. These awards are then used in advertising. For example, both hospitals were recognized as top 100 hospitals in 2018 and in earlier years. Along with the University of Iowa Hospitals, Mercy and St. Luke's are ranked as the best hospitals in Iowa. In some rankings, Mercy Medical Center is even named the best in Iowa.
Religion Besides business competition, the religious backgrounds of the hospitals were important for many years. Mercy was (and still is) a Catholic organization. The Grace Episcopal Church started St. Luke's, then gave it to the Methodist Church in 1923. St. Luke's later moved away from Methodist ownership and is now owned by UnityPoint.
Mercy's wish to stay an independent, Catholic organization has stopped efforts to merge the two hospitals. St. Luke's leaders tried to merge the hospitals as early as 1984. However, Mercy turned down merger offers as recently as 2015. Mercy's leaders said, "We have no intention of joining a large, multi-hospital system... because our main focus is providing exceptional patient care for the citizens and employers in the Cedar Rapids area." Mercy has also chosen not to join larger Mercy health systems.
Recent News at Mercy
On June 13, 2008, flood waters entered the hospital's basement and caused power outages. This forced Mercy to move its patients to other hospitals that were not affected by the flood. Within a few days, the water went down, and the hospital started cleaning up and making repairs. Within a month, the hospital announced that it had fully recovered and all its services were available again.
In February 2015, Mercy made international news when a dog traveled 20 blocks and entered the hospital. The dog was trying to find its owner, who was a patient there.
