Healthcare and Community Services

For a state with 6.12 million residents—less than 2 percent of the nation’s population—Missouri has top-tier systems that provide patient care, research that drives innovation in the treatment of disease, and highly regarded medical professionals across the spectrum of care.

Here’s a fer-instance: U.S. News & World Report recently issued its rankings of the best hospitals in America. Sitting just outside the Top 10, at No. 11, was Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, holding court with iconic institutional names like the Mayo Clinic, Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, and Mass General in Boston. 

That’s pretty impressive company. 

While Barnes-Jewish stood out as the highest-ranking Missouri hospital, it had plenty of company in the magazine’s honor roll. Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City earned a No. 22 national ranking in cardiology and heart surgery, as well as high-performing status in five specialties and 13 procedures. And  Children’s Mercy Kansas City made the magazine’s ranking of Missouri’s top hospitals, earning recognition in 10 separate care categories, including three Top 20 finishes, the highest being No. 4 nationally in pediatric nephrology. 

Those are just three of the 83 Missouri hospitals that produced 3.2 million patient days in 2021, generating nearly $80 billion in patient revenue. All told, more than 679,000 people were admitted to those hospitals last year.

Though straddled by two large healthcare markets that draw from multiple states, Missouri has numerous regional and community hospitals, especially in the next-tier markets of Springfield and the Columbia-Jefferson City corridor, as well as sub-markets that include St. Joseph, Joplin and Cape Girardeau.

The seven largest metropolitan areas are home to nearly 72 percent of the state’s residents, assuring a significant majority of the population has access to acute care within their MSA, including 11,100 physicians and nearly 82,000 licensed nurses in the state. 

Among those medical facilities, the granddaddy of them all is Barnes-Jewish, the crown jewel in the BJC HealthCare system and the biggest facility in the state, with 1,274 staffed beds. It has dominated healthcare delivery in St. Louis and the surrounding region since it was formed in 1966 with the merger of Barnes Hospital and Jewish Hospital. 

BJC is just one pillar in a 186-acre healthcare complex that covers 18 acres of Downtown St. Louis, an area designated the Washington University Medical Campus. It also includes BJC’s Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center and St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Three major faith-based systems also stand out in Missouri healthcare: Ascension, with more than 150 hospitals nationwide; Missouri-based Mercy, which operates 25 hospitals (12 in Missouri) across a four-state region; and the Sisters of Saint Mary’s SSM Health, with 23 hospitals in Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma and its headquarters state of Wisconsin.

Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, with nearly 860 beds, is the largest rival to Barnes-Jewish and adds to a highly competitive market for care delivery. SSM, which is aligned with Saint Louis University, brings 332 more beds to market.

In other parts of the state, CoxHealth has its biggest facility in Springfield, at 867 beds, and an important additional campus with 157 beds in Branson.

The Kansas City  market, has far more cross-state movement between patients and providers than in St. Louis. And Kansas City is blessed with multiple major medical centers as well as teaching research and community hospitals. On the Missouri side, HCA Health Midwest has nearly a dozen hospitals, anchored by the 480-bed Research Medical Center complex. Saint Luke’s, with 422 beds, is the flagship of a system with facilities across the Kansas City area. And while not technically in Missouri, the hospital ranked No. 1 in Kansas by U.S. News actually abuts Missouri: The University of Kansas Health System shares a state-line border with Kansas City’s Midtown neighborhood.  

Anchoring health care in central Missouri is the University of Missouri Health in Columbia, the teaching hospital affiliated with Mizzou. With 643 beds, it’s the state’s sixth-largest and includes the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center. To the northwest, the 352 beds at Mosaic Life Center’s main hospital in St. Joseph are just the start of that institution’s extensive reach across multiple counties to the north, a service territory bordering both Nebraska and Iowa.