Health Care and the Life Sciences
One thing can be said with certainty: Health-care services are abundant in the Greater Kansas City area, and the life sciences are adding a new vigor.
It’s not simply health-care services that are expanding in quantity and diversity in this city. The research behind the care is prominent here, as well. With cutting-edge hospitals and educational institutions, along with private life-science research centers and start-ups, the area is definitely “healthy.”
From major acute-care campuses to community-level facilities, 53 hospitals cover metropolitan Kansas City. Specialties range from cancer treatment and cardiac care to pediatric cases that draw from a much larger geographic area. Add in numerous research facilities, and it’s clear that health care and the life sciences are among the region’s strengths.
Many excellent hospitals can be found in the area, providing not just general care, but a multitude of specialty treatments, too. Saint Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute has the area’s only heart-transplant program at this point, and boasts the largest team of cardiologists and surgeons in the region. A recent $33-million dollar expansion will help facilitate its continued growth.
Children’s Mercy Hospital and Clinics is into the first phase of an $800-million, 15-year expansion for its location Downtown, as well as its satellite facilities. The hospital accounts for 77 percent of the regional pediatric care market.
Another anchor for Downtown Kansas City, not only as a health-care provider but as a major employer and a key part of the region’s research capability, is Truman Medical Center. The Hospital Hill location, along with its Lakewood campus in Lee’s Summit, admitted more than 20,000 patients in 2011. The Downtown facility provides more outpatient specialty care than any hospital in Kansas City, and with a Level 1 trauma center, TMC sees more patients than any other adult emergency-care unit.
Included in the nine hospitals operated by the largest system in the area, HCA Midwest, are recognized trauma centers. In 2011, Research Medical Center was named a Level I Trauma Center, the highest level designated for trauma care by the Missouri Department of Health. Overland Park Regional Medical Center and Centerpoint Medical Center both have Level II designations, and Belton Regional Medical Center is Level III.
Expansion is also in the picture for the Overland Park Regional Medical Center with a $16.5 million renovation of the women’s services unit and two additional projects: the $40 million Corporate Medical Plaza and the Deer Creek Surgery Center.
The University of Kansas Hospital is embarking on one of many development projects in the area with a planned $50 million expansion to add three new patient floors on top of an existing building as an addition to its Center for Advanced Heart Care.
Also in Johnson County, one of the largest expansions to be found is Shawnee Mission Medical Center’s $84 million extension of its hospital. Not just expanding but garnering awards, the Center for Women’s Health in Overland Park was listed as one of the country’s best hospitals for women.
Additional expansions in Johnson County are Saint Luke’s South’s $1.7 million Goppert Center for Breast Care, and Menorah Medical Center’s $45 million expansion of its Overland Park Campus. Menorah was also the first Johnson County hospital to have dual certification as an Accredited Chest Pain Center and Certified Stoke Care Center.
Nearby, Olathe Medical Center has been busy as well, with an announcement of the start of a $13 million critical-care unit to be built on top of the current emergency-care center. Not far north of Downtown Kansas City, North Kansas City Hospital is working on a $16 million Northland Emergency Expansion to open in February 2013. And Liberty Hospital added to the speciality mix in 2011 with the opening of its $15.1 million Heart and Vascular Center.
Not far away is Saint Luke’s East in Lee’s Summit, which recently undertook a $68 million addition for beds and an expanded emergency room.
The Life Sciences
Research is also important in the region’s health-care field. From education to private research facilities and programs, Kansas City’s life-science initiatives are working to expand this knowledge and grow the environment in which to pursue it.
The Kansas City area houses the only Carnegie Level One Research institution in the region under the auspices of the University of Kansas. Located on Shawnee Mission Parkway, the 82,400-square-foot center opened in January 2012 and houses the Phase I Clinical Trials program. The university is also pursuing National Cancer Center Institute designation, which will enable access to new therapies and laboratory discoveries. Its merger with the Kansas City Cancer Center gives patients access to 10 additional locations for treatment and participation in clinical trials.
The Stowers Institute for Medical Research, just east of the Country Club Plaza, was designed to facilitate collaboration between scientists and houses 22 independent research and three technology development programs. Also working to advance the life sciences is the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, the recipient of four 2011 Research Development Grants to study the genetic basis of childhood diseases.
In Johnson County, the emerging research triangle focuses on multiple aspects of the life sciences, including KU’s Clinical Research Center at the northeastern point of the triangle. That 2012 expansion within the triangle not only houses the KU clinical trials but also Frontiers: The Heartland Institute for Clinical and Transitional Research and the KU Alzheimer’s Disease Center, among others.
Another notable life-science program is the Kansas State Univ. Olathe Innovation Campus, where graduate-level students study bioscience and biotechnology, working with K-State faculty and industry scient-ists. And widely respected schools such as the University of Missouri–KC provide excellent work in the fields of medicine and dentistry.
With even more programs from Topeka to St. Joseph, the Kansas City region has outstanding health-care access across a broad region. Demand, which actually comes from large sections of up to six states, is sufficient to drive continued development. 