Council Bluffs hospitals employ more than 1,600 people. The city's resources include two, full-service hospitals and numerous specialized clinics. The metro area is fortunate to have over 15 hospitals and numerous other medical facilities/clinics. Each facility offers leading medical technology and excellent physicians, representing a variety of medical specialties.
Mercy Hospital, a member of Alegent Health, a nonprofit, community, health-care system, consistently receives a high ranking among the nation’s top 100 integrated health-care networks. With more than a century of service to the Council Bluffs community, Alegent Health Mercy Hospital offers a wide range of medical specialties, including cardiovascular services, orthopaedics, women’s and children’s services, oncology, emergency services, mental health services and outpatient surgery.
With the recent completion of a $22 million renovation/expansion project, Mercy Hospital is changing the way health care is delivered in southwest Iowa. With an award-winning facility design and nationally recognized patient care, Mercy Hospital provides a quality, health-care experience in a homelike environment.
The increased technologies and expansion of services allow area residents to have 90 percent of all medical procedures performed at the hospital. Mercy offers non-invasive cardiac care in the Heart and Vascular Institute and has a dedicated Chest Pain Center to provide immediate care for cardiac emergencies.
The Diagnostic and Imaging Center offers the latest technology for quality images and quick results. The expanded Emergency Department has two dedicated trauma rooms, radiology capabilities and specialized areas to care for orthopaedic and mental health emergencies.
The hospital also has a dedicated maternity floor with family-friendly, private birthing rooms, and the Orthopaedic Institute has received national recognition for its Joint Replacement Center.
Mercy Hospital is supported by a network of 17 Alegent Health Clinics throughout southwest Iowa and more than 125 active physicians on staff from a wide range of specialty areas.
Mercy Hospital has achieved magnet designation a further example of its commitment to patient care services.
Child Health Specialty Clinics (CHSC), Iowa’s Title V program for children with special healthcare needs. The program is funded through the federal Maternal and Child Health block grant and state appropriations. The agency provides services to children in southwest Iowa, birth to 21 years of age.
Services, which are billed on a sliding fee scale, include: Birth to Five Program (to monitor the development of children, 0-5 years old, at risk for developmental delay); Integrated Evaluation and Planning Clinics (to provide multidisciplinary evaluations and recommendations for children with behavioral or developmental problems); Care Coordination (to help families effectively obtain and organize needed resources); and System Development (to improve the quality of services for children and families).
CHSC has also begun using telehealth to deliver subspecialty physical and behavioral health services to children. Using a monitor screen and web camera that operates via high-speed Internet, telehealth clinics connect the child and family located at the CHSC — SW regional center to a subspecialty provider located at a remote site. Specific procedures assure confidentiality.
Children’s Hospital, a 142-bed nonprofit organization caring for children since 1948, is the only pediatric specialty health-care center in Nebraska. Patients are referred from throughout the region for the treatment of complex or unusual diseases, in addition to pediatric primary care.
No child in need of medical care is ever turned away due to an inability to pay. Since moving into its new facility in September 2000, Children’s has continuously added new programs and services to provide for the unique health needs of children.
The hospital offers 24/7 in-house services by pediatric critical-care specialists and pediatric emergency physicians. Services include an Eating Disorders program with inpatient, outpatient and partial day services, as well as a metabolic management clinic and a nationally renowned bone specialist.
The family-friendly design goes beyond the public areas. Each single-occupancy patient room has a parent sleep-bed, a desk with Internet access, private refrigerator, television and VCR, and a private full bath.
Creighton University Medical Center is one of the region’s premier academic medical centers and one of the largest health-care providers in Nebraska. The organization includes Saint Joseph Hospital, a 334-bed acute care facility; Creighton University Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, and Pharmacy and Health Professions; and Creighton Medical Associates, a network of nearly 300 faculty physicians who practice in clinic locations throughout Nebraska and Iowa. CUMC is known for its areas of focus in Cardiac Care, Cancer Care, Trauma, Minimally Invasive Surgery, High-Risk OB and Bloodless Medicine and Surgery. HealthGrades™, the nation’s leading health-care quality company, ranked Creighton University Medical Center number one in Omaha for Overall Cardiac Services for the fourth consecutive year. CUMC offers the region’s only freestanding facility dedicated to cardiac care.
Since its founding as a one-physician practice in 1970, Iowa Heart Center’s focus has remained the same: to provide quality, leading-edge and compassionate care to patients and their families. Today, Iowa Heart is one of the nation’s premier cardiovascular medicine practices, offering a full range of cutting-edge treatment options, complemented with clinical research and prevention services.
Iowa Heart Center operates full time clinics in Des Moines, West Des Moines, Ames, Carroll, Council Bluffs, Marshalltown, Ottumwa, and Fort Dodge, and visits an additional 30 Iowa and Missouri communities on an outreach basis. Iowa Heart is also proud to offer centers of excellence for vascular disease and electrophysiology, as well as a vein center, lipid clinic and CT screenings for coronary artery disease and lung cancer.
A 255-bed, regional health center, Jennie Edmundson Hospital has a 119-year tradition of serving the health-care needs of approximately 250,000 residents in southwest Iowa. This nonprofit hospital has more than 225 physicians on its medical staff, representing more than 20 medical specialties.
Jennie, which recently completed an $18 million renovation/expansion project, offers a full range of inpatient and outpatient medical, surgical and rehabilitation services.
Advanced technology includes CT scanning, open MRI, southwest Iowa’s only cardiac cath lab, a stereotactic breast-imaging monitor and a linear accelerator for cancer radiation treatment. Other specialty services include breast health center, cardiovascular services, birth services, pediatrics, orthopedics and sports medicine, behavioral health, employee assistance program, southwest Iowa’s only accredited cancer center and rehabilitation services.
