KANSAS CITY, Mo.—St. Luke's Hospital opened a new patient tower as it completed its $330 million expansion and renovation project, according to a news release. The Mid America Heart Institute has moved into the tower. The tower features hybrid operating rooms in which cardiologists and surgeons can work side by side, all private rooms with ample space for visitors and nursing stations interspersed among the rooms to put caregivers closer to the bedside, according to the release. The tower also features a rooftop garden and a disposal system that reduces trash volume by up to 80%. The space previously occupied by the heart institute is being renovated to house St. Luke's Neuroscience Institute. Previous phases of the project included the building of a women's heart center and a women's care center.

APPLETON, Wis.—Two competing health systems in central Wisconsin have found common ground on one issue: Neither wants the public to carry guns on their property. In response to a state law that will make it legal to secretly carry firearms in public starting Nov. 1, Affinity Health System and ThedaCare hospitals will be posting signs at their front doors banning all guns on premises and encouraging patients and visitors to keep weapons locked inside their vehicles. The systems operate hospitals or clinics in the Fox River Valley area, including Appleton and Oshkosh. “To minimize confusion in our communities, it made logical sense for ThedaCare and Affinity to collaborate on common signage and policies,” Scott Decker, vice president of quality for ThedaCare, said in a news release. The Wisconsin Hospital Association is not tracking the issue at healthcare providers statewide, and spokeswoman Mary Kay Grasmick said many providers have not yet made up their minds on the issue. A spokesman for Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee said that system is enacting a ban as well. Experts say Wisconsin is the 49th state to approve a concealed-carry law, leaving Illinois the only state without such a statute. Although the Wisconsin law allows most state residents to apply for licenses to carry concealed guns, the owners of businesses can still ban weapons with adequate signage at all of the entrances to the building where guns are banned. Carrying machine guns and sawed-off shotguns remains illegal in any context, state officials said.

A new outpatient pavilion at Christ Medical Center will include 14 operating suites and a women's center.

OAK LAWN, Ill.— Advocate Christ Medical Center and Hope Children's Hospital broke ground on a nine-story, $202 million outpatient pavilion. The 308,000-square-foot building includes 14 operating suites and two floors for advanced imaging and endoscopy labs. The addition includes space for an indoor winter garden, a women's center, cancer, heart and vascular services, and neuroscience institutes. “The pavilion will enable us to serve the community better by centralizing our outpatient services in a single location that offers modern, high-tech space and equipment for surgical procedures, patient clinic visits and physician and staff work areas,” Dominica Tallarico, the hospital's chief operating officer, said in a news release. The plans are part of a broader effort to modernize the 50-year-old campus to serve a growing population in the southwest Chicago suburbs the 683-bed hospital serves, spokesman Mike Maggio said. A six-level parking garage with 640 spaces is expected to be completed by the summer and will be connected to the hospital via a pedestrian walkway. The pavilion is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2013. Capital from the hospital's parent, Advocate Health Care, a 10-hospital system based in Oak Brook, will pay for the construction, Maggio said.

ST. LOUIS—SSM Health Care has expanded its SSM Heart Institute cardiology medical group with 14 cardiologists from three area practices joining the group, according to a news release. Two of the groups were already located on the campuses of SSM hospitals: Metro Heart Group of Clayton and its six physicians on the campus of 446-bed SSM St. Mary's Health Center, St. Louis, and Midwest Cardiovascular Consultants and its four physicians on the campus of 422-bed SSM DePaul Health Center, Bridgeton, Mo. The third group is Metro Heart Group of St. Peters, which has four physicians and three clinic locations in greater St. Louis. The heart institute also recently signed a co-management agreement with Patients First Health Care of Washington, Mo., to oversee cardiovascular services at 174-bed SSM St. Clare Health Center, Fenton, Mo. Patients First, a multispecialty physician practice, has clashed recently with the hospital system now known simply as Mercy, Chesterfield, Mo., and its hospital in Washington, Mo., now Mercy Hospital.