Mercy Health is a not-for-profit Catholichealth care organization located in the Midwestern United States with headquarters within Greater St. Louis in the western St. Louis County, Missouri suburb of Chesterfield. Mercy is the fifth largest Catholic health care system in the United States and named one of the top five large U.S. health systems in 2018 by Truven. Mercy was founded in 1871 by Sisters of Mercy as part of the communal support and developed as part of their mission. Currently Mercy has 45 acute care and specialty hospitals. Mercy employs 44,000 employees and more than 2,100 physicians.
History
The mission of Mercy comes from the teachings of Catherine McAuley, an Irish nun who founded Sisters of Mercy in 1831. Mercy in the United States traces its roots to New York in 1846. In 1856 the Sisters of Mercy came to St. Louis and founded the Religious Sisters of Mercy of the St. Louis Province. Fifteen years later, in 1871, they opened a 25-bed infirmary for women and children. Over the years, the Sisters of Mercy expanded their health ministry in the Regional Community’s seven-state area: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. While the hospitals and other health care facilities sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy were not formally linked, as early as the 1960s they shared management and consulting staff resources. In 1986, to position the individual hospitals for coming changes in health care, the Sisters of Mercy created the Sisters of Mercy Health System. In 2011, Sisters of Mercy Health System renamed many of its hospitals and clinics under a singular brand - Mercy. For example, St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis is now Mercy Hospital St. Louis.
Locations
Mercy operates in four states, with ministry outreach programs in Texas and Louisiana. Mercy's largest hospital complexes are in Springfield, Missouri and Greater St. Louis.
On May 22, 2011, one of Mercy's larger hospitals, St. John's Regional Medical Center was seriously damaged by a tornado from the May 2011 tornado outbreak. At least four people were killed inside the hospital and its grounds, and surviving patients were evacuated from the health facility, which sustained major structural damage. One of the hospital's towers took a direct hit by the storm and was rotated four inches on its foundation.
Services
Mercy offers many services in the communities it serves. Including services such as cancer treatment, pediatrics, heart and palliative care. Mercy has opened the world's first facility dedicated solely to Telemedicine. The Safewatch program was created in 2006 and has said to have served up to 420 beds remotely. Mercy hosts one of the largest implementations of Epic, an electronic health record. In 2014 Mercy began to provide Epic support services to other healthcare organizations such as CaroMont Regional Medical Center and Oklahoma State University.
Leadership
Lynn Britton has served as the CEO of Mercy since January 2009.
