Saint Luke’s to close two more Johnson County community hospitals by end of the year

Saint Luke’s Health System will close two more of its community hospitals in Johnson County at the end of the year to concentrate on busier locations, hospital officials said Tuesday.

The move affects the Saint Luke’s South Community Hospitals at 13405 S. Black Bob Road in Olathe and 14950 W. 67th Street in Shawnee. Emergency care will be available at both until Dec. 23. Inpatient services will close sooner, but no date was given.

Saint Luke’s had already closed two other community hospitals in Overland Park in December 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. That year Saint Luke’s also closed Saint Luke’s Cushing Hospital in Leavenworth, citing financial difficulties caused by the pandemic.

Hospital officials said the new closings are part of a plan to focus the health system’s resources on offering those emergency care services where the patient demand is higher.

Three other locations on the Kansas side will remain open:

▪ Leawood: 13200 State Line Road

▪ The Legends in Kansas City, Kansas: 10544 Parallel Parkway

▪ Roeland Park: 4720 Johnson Drive

Saint Luke’s introduced the community hospital concept to the metro in 2018. It was one of several local health systems that moved “micro-hospitals,” free-standing emergency rooms and other services into growing Johnson County.

The goal was to offer full-service emergency care close to home and alleviate emergency room overcrowding and long patient wait times. Saint Luke’s locations boast a door-to-doctor time of less than 10 minutes.

The community hospitals can treat and stabilize serious conditions ranging from heart attacks and strokes to sprains and broken bones and complications from flu.

“Our community hospitals have revolutionized the way we offer emergency and inpatient care and have been incredibly well-received by patients,” Bobby Olm-Shipman, Saint Luke’s South and East Region CEO, said in a statement.

“We want to make sure we are focusing on the locations experiencing the highest demand so we can serve our patients where they need us most.”

When the two other sites closed in 2020, Olm-Shipman said the community hospital model was “here to stay.”

Employees at the locations closing in December will be able to take other jobs within the health system, officials said.

The hospital landscape in Johnson County is changing quickly. Last month Olathe Health announced it will become part of The University of Kansas Health System, a deal that will, among other things, give KU access to land for expansion in Johnson County.

Olathe Health is already expanding its Johnson County footprint with two new outpatient centers being built near the busy intersection of U.S. 69 and 135th Street in Overland Park and a larger medical campus at 151st Street and Quivira Road in Olathe.

AdventHealth Shawnee Mission is also building a $76.5 million cancer center in Johnson County that will allow it to double the number of patients it serves by 2030.