Name, logo change set for St. Edward Mercy

Sign and print companies, rejoice.

St. Edward Mercy Medical Center in Fort Smith will adopt a new name and logo beginning in April 2012 as part of a move by the St. Louis-based Mercy system to “create a more meaningful and unified identity” with Mercy facilities in 100 communities.

“We owe it to the 3 million patients we serve each year to know us by one name,” said Lynn Britton, president and CEO of Mercy, said in the statement. “Adopting the Mercy name is not so much a change as a natural evolution. Our electronic health record has allowed our physicians and medical teams to coordinate care across facilities, communities and even states in ways that were never before possible. It has opened up a whole new world of more convenient and personalized care for our patients.”

During 2012, facilities owned by the hospital system will move to the new Mercy name and logo. This includes St. Edward in Fort Smith, Ark.; St. Joseph’s Mercy Health Center in Hot Springs, Ark.; St. John’s Hospital in Berryville, Ark. and all Mercy Clinic locations across the area. Mercy of Northwest Arkansas made the change from St. Mary’s to Mercy when it moved to its new Rogers, Ark., location in 2008.

Hospital officials did not have a local dollar amount on what the new changes will cost in terms of internal and external signage, letterhead, business cards, advertising changes, etc.

Laura Keep, media relations with St. Edward and Mercy of Northwest Arkansas, said the signs are made at a central location and then shipped to the hospitals. She said local sign companies will be hired to install more than 30 signs at more than 15 locations in the Fort Smith area.

Sister Judith Marie Keith, who was president of St. Edward for 27 years and retired in 1997, said the name change “sets the standard to say, ‘This is who we are and what you, the consumer, should expect from us,’” in terms of patient care.

“I am very much supportive of the change. … I think it is a positive,” Keith said.

The name and logo change also comes as the hospital system — the eighth largest Catholic health system in the U.S. — is underway on a 10-year, $4.8 billion capital expenditure plan to improve and expand operations in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Mercy announced in August a $192 million to upgrade St. Edward Mercy facilities. The work will include construction of a more than $8.1 million primary clinic on Dallas Street in Fort Smith near the Mercy Fitness Center, completion of the off-again, on-again orthopedic hospital began by River Valley Musculoskeletal Center (RVMC), and a $500,000 investment in Mercy’s operation in Waldron are included in the package of regional capital projects.

The changes also are likely to happen under a new CEO in Fort Smith. Former St. Edward CEO Jeff Johnston left in August to begin Sept. 1 as the CEO of Mercy’s flagship hospital in St. Louis. Kim Day, president of Mercy Central Communities (Joplin, Springfield, Mo., areas) was named interim CEO.

“They are making progress on that,” Keep, media relations with St. Edward and Mercy of Northwest Arkansas, adding that a new CEO could be in place by the end of January.

St. Edward Mercy in the Fort Smith region is comprised of the 365-bed hospital in Fort Smith, critical access centers in Paris, Waldron and Ozark and the Mercy Clinic. More than 85 doctors and 2,100 employees operate in nine locations in the region.