In March 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic hit the state of Missouri. A new hospital came to the St. Louis City area five months later.
“SLU Hospital opened in September 2020 right in the middle of the pandemic,” Steven Scott, president of SSM Health St. Louis University Hospital, said. “It was done out of our unwavering commitment to the community, to the people we serve to assure that the opening of this hospital would not be delayed.”
“We are working on a project to expand our in-person capacity by inserting and installing a second linear accelerator, adding an additional mammography unit and installing a new intraoperative MRI, which will allow us to have a magnetic resonance radiology machine intraoperatively in our operating rooms,” Scott said.
Scott served as the interim president before being named president of SLU Hospital in March 2019, which was before the hospital opened its front doors.
When asked about leading SLU Hospital in the middle of the pandemic, Scott talked about some of the challenges from the past two years.
“It’s been challenging over these last 20 months to manage supply chain shortages as well as ensuring our staff remains safe during the pandemic,” he said. “We provide critical care that patients need, especially during the peak of the pandemic; we’re still managing it through the delta variant and now the omicron variant.”
According to Scott, many cases have been declining since vaccinations have increased. This is true, according to the latest briefing from the St. Louis Pandemic Task Force.
“The most critical thing for us to manage through the pandemic so far has been how to address not only a shortage of supplies but also labor shortages and operational fatigue and burnout of all staff members to be present for the members of the community,” he said.
Although it is a global problem, nursing workforce data shows that in Missouri, shortages currently exist in certain areas of the state.
“It has been a significant challenge for us to recruit nursing personnel and technical personnel as well,” the hospital president said. “I think, like many other organizations, we are looking at our recruitment and retention tactics; currently, we rely on agency personnel.”
Despite the labor shortages, the hospital is working to increase in-patient capacity and advanced technologies to meet the community’s needs.
“To continue providing strong support for our team and to manage access into this chronically full hospital, we are working on a project to expand our in-person capacity by inserting and installing a second linear accelerator, adding an additional mammography unit and installing a new intraoperative MRI, which will allow us to have a magnetic resonance radiology machine intraoperatively in our operating rooms,” Scott said.
These projects are projected to reach completion in 2022.
Before the pandemic, the hospital executive with more than 20 years of experience managing healthcare providers said his favorite part of his work was meeting patients.
“I don’t get a chance to do it as much as I would like these days because of the pandemic but I do approach patients in our waiting room, and with permission from our nurses, I check in with our in-patients to ask how their experience has been to ask about what they have liked or to see where our opportunities for improvement are,” he said. “We take all of those comments to heart.”
SLU Hospital is new to the St. Louis area, but Scott anticipates it providing healthcare to the community for a long time.
“I look forward to many years of continued service to the citizens of St. Louis and beyond,” he said.
