This has been a very busy year for St. Vincent Charity Medical Center and we are pleased to share some exciting developments that have taken place in the past few months.

We recently entered a lease arrangement for St. Vincent Charity Surgery Center at Rockside. This facility allows us to better maximize our inpatient and outpatient surgical schedule. It also enhances our Rockside Road presence by adding outpatient surgery to our imaging, physical therapy and physician offices located there.

We continue to add new physicians to our medical staff, including two additions to our Spine and Orthopedic Institute. I am very pleased to announce that James Anderson, MD, has joined our team in neurosurgery. He brings with him a great background neurosurgery, including spine and intracranial expertise. Also new to our Spine and Orthopedic Institute is George Friedhoff, DO, who joins us fresh from a fellowship in sports medicine at Riverside Hospital in Columbus. He will be an orthopedist in our physician office at 6701 Rockside Road. Dr. Ama Paintsil, who recently completed her internal medicine residency with us, joins St. Vincent Medical Group.

St. Vincent Charity Medical Center received a $500,000 appropriation in the state capital bill for expansion of its Geriatric Behavioral Health Program. These funds will help to renovate a portion of a hospital floor to increase psychiatric bed capacity from 50 to 62 beds. The state capital bill funds will allow us to replace dated patient rooms with a facilities upgrade that supports the vision of quality and compassionate care for its senior behavioral health clients while also protecting caregivers from injury.

We are so pleased to have the bipartisan support of the state legislature for our project and for our hospital as well as the generous support of the Prentiss Foundation for $300,000,  the Bruening Foundation for $100,000 and the Walter Born Foundation for $25,000. We hope to begin construction later this year.

Don’t forget to support our Pizzazz Gala. We are thrilled to be kicking off our 150^th anniversary at this year’s event, held on Saturday, October 18^th and Public Auditorium. We will be honoring Mayor Frank Jackson as our St. Vincent de Paul Award winner as well as KeyBank as our corporate winner. Please call our Foundation office at 216-694-4685 for sponsorship information.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that St. Vincent Charity Medical Center’s marketing efforts are being recognized nationally. We earned Gold Awards from the Aster Awards for Excellence in Medical Marketing for our new website and for our Live Orthopedic Surgery Tweet. We also earned Silver Awards from the 31^st Healthcare Advertising Awards from Healthcare Marketing Report for the live ortho tweet and website.

As always, thank you for your support and we look forward to celebrating our 150^th anniversary kickoff with you at Pizzazz!

David F. Perse, MD

President and CEO