At a limited press conference today, Ozarks Medical Center (OMC) officials announced the opening of its new Women’s Center and a branding transformation to Ozarks Healthcare.
About Ozarks Healthcare’s New Women’s Center
Featuring 20,000 square feet, the new Ozarks Healthcare Women’s Center includes modern labor and delivery rooms, gynecological surgery facilities, and educational spaces. The Women’s Center is the first portion of the most significant expansion in the medical center’s history to be completed.
“With the addition of our Women’s Center, we will now be able to better serve women’s health needs in our surrounding communities and expand our focus on the health of our entire region,” Tom Keller, Ozarks Healthcare President and CEO, said. “This new center will be an incredible asset to our health system and community.”
Featuring an additional 20,000 square feet to the ongoing medical system’s expansion project, the Center includes modern labor and delivery rooms, gynecological surgery facilities, and educational spaces.
The Women’s Center will house five Labor, Delivery, Recovery, and Postpartum rooms, plus one Labor and Delivery Procedure Room. New technologies include a new isolette unit to help with temperature regulation of newborns. New technologies and equipment will help advance the deliveries of roughly 600 newborns OMC conducts each year.
A lactation suite with three bays will be available to those needing to use the space. In addition to Ozarks Healthcare’s obstetricians, gynecologist, and labor and delivery nurses, three certified lactation consultants and four lactation counselors will also be working in the center.
A new education space located in the lower level of the Women’s Center will be shared with the public once Ozarks Healthcare’s in-person trainings resume. While in-person trainings are on hold due to COVID-19, prenatal and labor prep classes will be offered in the space in the future. This space will also allow for more room in staff trainings around neonatal and fetal monitoring topics.
The Women’s Center is set to open to the public in early December. The health system’s current obstetrical care and delivery unit will be transformed into an additional isolated COVID Care Unit (CCU) for COVID-19 patients.
In addition to the Women’s Center, the health system’s ongoing expansion includes approximately 100,000 new square feet and will bring almost all of Ozarks Healthcare’s specialty clinics and ancillary services to a Medical Office Building (MOB) that will join the main hospital to the current Shaw Medical Building. The expansion will also create a one-stop area for patients to register, schedule appointments, and use the onsite pharmacy, imaging center, laboratories, expanded cafeteria and a new retail restaurant. An expansion completion date is targeted for mid-2021.
A photo gallery of the new facility is below:
About Ozarks Healthcare: Focused on Your Health
Ozarks Healthcare officials also announced an organization name change from Ozarks Medical Center (OMC) to Ozarks Healthcare effective immediately.
“Today, I am proud to announce the launch of a branding transformation from Ozarks Medical Center (OMC) to Ozarks Healthcare,” Keller said. “The branding of Ozarks Healthcare is focused on the health of our service area and the entire Ozarks region. Ozarks Healthcare will point to our coworkers, our patients, their families, our medical staff, partners and the communities we serve. Our focus is more than a hospital or medical buildings; it is a focus on people and their futures.”
The brand change has been an ongoing project for the past few years, Keller said. Focus groups composed of frontline coworkers, physicians, community members from the health system’s service area, and others participated in research to reach the conclusion that a brand refresh could help the organization better relate and communicate its services and level of care.
While this year has presented new challenges to the healthcare industry as a whole, Keller said the decision to launch Ozarks Healthcare now presents new opportunities.
“After debating if 2020 was the best time to launch a new brand in the midst of a pandemic, we took the importance of branding and how it relates to our patients into account before making our final decision,” Keller said. “In a time when communication in our industry is now more critical than ever, it is vital for us to be able to successfully relay who we are as an organization to the public. Our hope and goal with this brand change is to be better seen as the compassionate and advanced healthcare resource we are in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.”
Beginning today, branding changes that will be specifically noticed include:
• Facility signage
• Clinic and service names
• A new logo and artwork
• A new website, www.OzarksHealthcare.com
More information about additional changes will be shared as the brand rollout progresses. Ozarks Healthcare will remain a community-owned nonprofit healthcare provider, governed by a board of 15 volunteer community leaders and medical staff, Keller said.
“While pieces of our branding may look different, rest assured that our mission, which is to provide exceptional, compassionate care to all we serve, will remain the same,” Keller said. “We are proud of where we have been and are excited for where we are going.”
Ozarks Healthcare is a system of care encompassing eight primary care and 17 specialty clinics, along with complete rehabilitation, behavioral healthcare, and home health services. While the 114-bed acute care hospital cares for more than 5,400 admissions, the entire health system has more than 364,000 patient visits annually in South Central Missouri and Northern Arkansas. For more information about Ozarks Healthcare, visit www.OzarksHealthcare.com.
