You may notice a change the next time you visit a St. Vincent’s Healthcare facility in Jacksonville.
The Catholic hospital system is adding Ascension to its name.
St. Vincent’s has actually been part of Ascension since 1999, when it was formed by the Daughters of Charity. The Daughters of Charity also launched St. Vincent’s more than 100 years ago.
Since then the nonprofit health system has grown to 2,500 sites of care and 26,000 providers in 22 states and Washington, D.C., according to a news release from the hospital system.
In Jacksonville, Ascension’s St. Vincent’s HealthCare operates three hospitals in addition to dozens of healthcare facilities and employs more than 5,000.
“Working together as part of Ascension has enabled St. Vincent’s HealthCare to further improve the care we provide by combining the knowledge and resources of thousands of medical professionals nationwide with the extraordinary expertise of our own local physicians and caregivers,” said said St. Vincent’s president and CEO Tom VanOsdol in an email to WJCT News.
VanOsdol offered Hurricane Irma as an example of how the various hospitals in the system work together. “Our colleagues in Birmingham, Alabama, offered us platelets, and associates in Pensacola drove through the night to deliver them the day after the storm so we could perform surgeries. Adding the Ascension name to our own only amplifies our strength as part of this national network,” said VanOsdol.
Bill Bortzfield can be reached at bbortzfield@wjct.org, 904-358-6349 or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.
