St. Joseph's administrator Jacolyn Schlautman retires

Jacolyn Schlautman, chief executive officer at St. Joseph's Hospital in Breese, has announced her retirement, effective Aug. 31.

"Serving St. Joseph's Hospital and working with the physicians, hospital staff, boards and our communities has been a great experience," Schlautman said in announcing her retirement. "I feel this is an opportune time for me to look forward to retirement and open the door to new leadership."

Originally from Germantown, Schlautman worked in healthcare in the Chicago area before relocating back to Germantown when she was named administrator of St. Joseph's in Breese in 1992. She replaced Sister Mary Anthony Menting, who had served in the executive position since 1971.

During her 15 years of service, Schlautman was instrumental in expanding the hospital and adding many new services.

The need for a larger obstetrical area and more private rooms lead to Schlautman's first project-a $1.8 million renovation of the entire second floor that added four private labor-delivery-recovery rooms, surgical suites for Caesarean Sections and three nurseries: general, Level 2 and Isolation. The area was renamed the Women and Infants Center and attracts families from throughout the surrounding area.

Seeing the growth in the community and in the number of visitors, the hospital next turned its attention to emergency services and in 1997, a new $1.8 million Emergency Department was dedicated. The new ER included four private exam rooms, two cardiac/trauma rooms, a centrally-located nurses station, wireless cardiac monitoring, new equipment, a two-bay ambulance garage, an MRI docking bay and new heliport.

Outpatient services also continued to increase-by 1995, the hospital was serving 15 outpatients to every one inpatient-and to answer that need, a dedicated 2000-square-foot Outpatient Center offering lab services, EKGs, registration and central scheduling opened in 1999. By then, St. Joseph's in Breese was seeing over 50,000 outpatients a year.

Throughout the years, an increasing number of consulting physicians began coming to St. Joseph's in Breese and the Ambulatory Care Department was organized in 1999 to provide greater coordination between these physicians, their patients and the hospital. In 2003, a $1.7 million six-suite Specialty Clinics Building was completed to provide dedicated office space for these specialists.

As the number of surgical cases continued to increase, plans were made for expansion and renovation and by 2003, a $2.9 million Surgery project was completed including the expansion of the two existing operating rooms, recovery and procedure rooms and addition of a third, larger operating room.

The complexity of surgeries also continued to increase and by the 1990s, minimally-invasive gall bladder surgery, total hip and total knee surgeries were among the services available.

In addition to the construction projects, the hospital also continued to add new equipment.

A permanent computerized tomography (CT) scanner was installed in 2000 and by 2003, mobile MRI services were being offered. State-of-the-art equipment was also added in Medical Imaging and Laboratory, among other departments.

More recently, realizing that new therapy services could not be provided without additional space, the hospital broke ground for a new $5 million Outpatient Therapy Building. This 26,000-square-foot facility, known as the St. Joseph's Hospital HealthPlex, opened in July.

The new HealthPlex provides room for Physical Therapy-including the newly available aquatic therapy-cardiac and pulmonary rehab and new KEYs-4-Life education and exercise programs.

Also at the HealthPlex are Athletes Advantage, the hospital's sports medicine program which debuted in 2002, and Senior Renewal, the outpatient program for those 60 years old and over, which began in 2005.

"All the projects we've completed have had one goal-to continue to provide the best healthcare possible to the people of Clinton County and surrounding areas," Schlautman said.

"The hospital will continue to grow under new leadership," she said. "The residents and visitors of this area can continue to put their trust in the physicians and staff at St. Joseph's in Breese."