1Q: What is SSM St. Clare Health Center?
A: SSM St. Clare Health Center will be an innovative health care campus, located in southwest St. Louis County, at the intersection of Highway 141 and Bowles Avenue. The 54-acre campus will include a full-service hospital that will replace the current SSM St. Joseph Hospital of Kirkwood.

2Q: Why is SSM Health Care building a new hospital?
A: SSM St. Clare Health Center will allow SSM Health Care to maintain its health care ministry serving the Kirkwood area, while also meeting the needs of a rapidly expanding population in southwest St. Louis County in need of greater access to care, closer to home.

3Q: How is this project different from other new hospitals?
A: SSM St. Clare Health Center will provide something entirely new in the delivery of health care in our region. It will be the hospital of the future, with the latest in information and clinical technology, along with an innovative service delivery approach that will offer an unsurpassed level of patient care, convenience, comfort, and safety – in a unique healing environment that takes full advantage of the site’s natural beauty.

4Q: What happens between now and the time SSM St. Clare Health Center opens?
A: We will continue to provide the same level of exceptional care at the current St. Joseph Hospital of Kirkwood until SSM St. Clare Health Center opens in Spring 2009.

5Q: What is the economic benefit of this project?
A: SSM Health Care will invest nearly $236 million in the construction of SSM St. Clare Health Center and its health care campus.

6Q: What is the timetable for completion?
A: Construction will begin in 2006, with an anticipated opening in Spring 2009.

7Q: Why did you change the name from SSM St. Joseph Hospital to SSM St. Clare Health Center?

A: When we announced our replacement hospital project in late 2004, we also unveiled a bold vision for our new facility:  “We will fundamentally reinvent the health care experience from the ground up for patients, physicians and staff to achieve breakthrough results in satisfaction, patient safety, clinical outcomes and operating performance.”  Since we intend to create a new health care reality, it is fitting that our replacement facility would have a new name as well, honoring and building upon St. Joseph Hospital’s proud heritage of service and mission.

Click here to read more about how the name SSM St. Clare Health Center appropriately represents SSM Health Care's vision to fundamentally reinvent the health care experience, from the ground up.

8Q: When will you break ground for the new hospital?

A: The groundbreaking ceremony for SSM St. Clare Health Center took place on Thursday, June 8, 2006, with nearly 250 in attendance. The ceremony was held on the site of the new hospital, formerly the Lakewood Golf Course, at Highway 141 and Bowles Avenue.

Among those speaking at the event included Missouri State Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons, R-District 13; St. Louis County Executive Charlie A. Dooley; Sr. Jacqueline Motzel, president of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, the sponsoring congregation of SSM; and Sr. Mary Jean Ryan, president and CEO of SSM Health Care. The Most Reverend Raymond Leo Burke, archbishop of St. Louis, offered the blessing of the building site.

9Q: What will SSM St. Clare Health Center look like?

A: The site plan and design for the 154-bed SSM St. Clare Health Center was shared at the groundbreaking ceremony. The overall campus design is centered on convenience, accessibility and patient safety, while also keeping the needs of physicians, staff and visitors top-of-mind.