Opening of new CUMC University Campus downgrades trauma services of the old Creighton University hospital after struggling to maintain its trauma rating for years

The second floor of the new community health center offers only outpatient medical services

Creighton University Medical Center (CUMC), formerly known as the old St. Joseph Hospital, will soon close its doors in August 2017, but a new, scaled-back, 86,000-square-foot, $36.5 million community health center at 24th and Cuming Streets, which opened this past week, will kind of take its place.

CUMC (formerly known as St. Joseph Hospital) is closing its doors in August,
but its replacement is curiously scaling back medical services from its previous
inpatient trauma designation

The newly dubbed CHI Health University Campus at 2412 Cuming Street opened its doors for the first time Monday morning to some confusion and questions from the public.

The old CUMC was a full service, inpatient trauma center that at times struggled to maintain its Level-1 Trauma certification from the state's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS.)

Back on October 21, 2014, the DHHS denied the hospital an application for Level-1 Trauma designation, citing CUMC for safety deficiencies in meeting four areas of comprehensive patient care standards: 1) clinical capabilities in general surgery, 2) clinical qualifications in neurosurgery, 3) clinical capabilities in orthopedic surgery, and 4) having enough verified or equivalent registered nurses or trauma nurses staffed in the emergency department.

This may be why plans for the new CUMC University Campus' medical services from 2014 were downgraded and scaled back from the hospital's previous Level-1 trauma certification as an inpatient trauma hospital to largely as an outpatient clinical center with limited emergency room services.

Inpatients from CUMC will all eventually be transferred to CHI Bergan Mercy

CUMC officials have been planning a move out of the old CUMC at 601 N. 30th Street for a while, ending a 40 year run, first as St. Joseph hospital, then as Creighton University School of Medicine's flagship teaching hospital. Officials plan on converting the old facility into a mammoth apartment complex.

The inpatient hospital beds, trauma center and academic medical center at the old CUMC will be moved Southeast to Creighton University Medical Center Bergen Mercy at 75th Street and Mercer Road. The existing CHI Health Clinic at 8613 N. 30th Street in the Old Market will remain open, but is slated to close its doors for good on January 30.

Creighton University's family medical residency program, now based out of the CHI health clinic at 7909 N. 30th Street, was already moved to the new University Campus health center this week.

While the outpatient medical clinics and a retail pharmacy opened on the second floor of the University Campus health center this week, the medical suites on the first floor, which included a fourth set of exam rooms for occupational and physical therapy, a children's physicians clinic, and a new first floor emergency department will not open until later this year.

The new CHI University Center that is replacing the old CUMC is noticeably
scaled back and downgraded in medical services compared to CUMC

The clinics will be staffed by physicians, faculty, residents, medical students, and other healthcare professionals from Creighton University School of Medicine in family medicine, internal medicine, women's health, cardiology, urology, endocrinology and other medical specialties aimed at managing chronic diseases.

Most CHI physicians have dual appointments as faculty members of Creighton University School of Medicine.

The new health center's emergency department will treat emergency patients but won't handle trauma cases as CUMC does now. 

Medical staff will stabilize trauma patients and send them to the nearest available trauma center, using protocols already in place at Midlands Hospital in Papillion and Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs. Women in labor will also be stabilized and transported, in compliance with federal emergency department laws, commonly known as EMTALA.

CHI Bergen Mercy and Nebraska Medical Center will take over trauma duties from the former CUMC. Nebraska Medicine recently announced plans to greatly expand its emergency department in anticipation of CUMC's closure. Both Bergan Mercy and Nebraska Medical Center are the metroplex's other trauma-rated medical facilities.

CHI Health headquarters in Omaha, NE

Creighton University Medical Center will begin scaling back on all inpatient hospital admissions in late spring. On June 10th, staff will begin transferring remaining inpatients from the hospital to it's CHI Bergen Mercy location. 

Bergen Mercy, in the meantime, is getting a huge $140 million makeover, including an expanded emergency department and a new outpatient clinical building that will serve as the new hub for Creighton University's flagship academic medical center.

CHI Health intends on fully moving out of its N. 30th Street facility by the end of August and is ready to turn over the property to NuStyle Development, which intends on converting the property into a mixed-use commercial retail and residential complex.

Of course the question remains whether these latest moves by Creighton University are really a positive or a negative for the medical center. Judging by the low-key publicity campaign by Creighton, it appears to not all to be good news, but rather somewhat of a black eye to and strategic retreat of, not only to the medical school, but to CHI Health.

References:

• Omaha World-Herald—CHI Health on the move (1/28/17)
• Omaha World-Herald—New CUMC facility is just what the doctor ordered for north Omaha (1/12/17)
• KETV—New medical center opens its doors (1/9/17) with video
• KETV Video—CHI Health opens new medical center near 24th, Cuming (1/9/17)
• Omaha World-Herald—When Creighton med center moves in 2017, building to get new life as 700 apartments, retail space (5/29/16)
• Omaha World-Herald—Emergency responders to resume taking trauma patients to Creighton University Medical Center (2/23/15)
• Omaha World-Herald—Creighton University Medical Center gets top trauma center designation from state (2/20/15)
• WOWT—Update: CHI Creighton Loses Trauma Center Approval (1/13/15)
• KETV—CHI Creighton trauma center denied Level 1 certification (1/13/15)
• Omaha World-Herald—State denies Level I trauma center status for Creighton University Medical Center (1/12/15)