New Administrator to Guide to St.Vincent Fishers Expansion

Gary Fammartino leads St.Vincent Medical Center Northeast's expansion at Exit 10.

St. Vincent Medical Center Northeast in Fishers has grown up over the last few years. Built in 2008 around the needs of the Fishers community and under the guidance of site director Kim Nealon, the medical center has seen the demands for its services grow along with its burgeoning population.

This past February, St. Vincent officials chose Gary Fammartino, a 10-year employee of St. Vincent, to be the administrator for the facility. Kim Nealon will take over the position of chief nurse officer. Both will collaborate on the expansion project scheduled for completion next year.

“From the very beginning when we built the outpatient center, we wanted to have an anchor service, which was the freestanding Emergency Department (ED),” Fammartino said. The decision to proceed with the ED was based upon a community survey of 400 homes in Fishers, asking what medical services were important to the community. The results that came back
from that survey were tailored to the very services that the medical center currently offers: the first freestanding ED in Indiana, as well as an ambulatory surgery center, an all-digital imaging center, laboratory services, behavioral health (stress center), rehab, women’s services, pediatrics, and a pediatric and adult sleep disorders center.

Fammartino points out that all along the plan allowed for future expansion of the facility to include inpatient services as the community grew. Shortly after construction started on the medical center, however, the economy crashed. Once the economy picked back up, officials resumed the expansion plans for Fishers, which is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. “We knew at the right time … that having that extension on the inpatient services was going to be a key for this community,” Fammartino said.

The 110,000-square-foot tower expansion will focus on women’s and family health and will turn the health center into a 40-bed inpatient hospital. Its new name will be St. Vincent Fishers Hospital, and the scheduled opening is April 2013.The expansion will also significantly increase the employee base of the Fishers’ hospital from 120 employees to 320 employees.

Of the 40 beds, 30 will be medical/surgical beds and 10 will be labor/delivery/recovery/ postpartum rooms—multipurpose rooms which will enable the woman and her baby to remain in one room for the duration of her hospital stay. Additional plans include spa-like amenities, indoor and outdoor dining, and convenient 24-hour room service for patients.

Fammartino with Chief Nurse Officer Kim Nealon just outside of the St.Vincent Center for Women's Health.

As the newest member of a network of 23 health care entities, St. Vincent Fishers Hospital will have the ability to refer its patients to other St. Vincent locations. Because of that referral base, a huge infrastructure in Fishers is not necessary. For example, the St. VIncent Fishers Hospital will be able to stabilize heart attack patients or extremely injured car accident victims in their own ED and then transfer them over to one of their other facilities for further care as needed.

Serving the community is one of the core tenants of St.Vincent, as evidenced by the wide range of services, classes, and programs they offer to the community. Here’s just a smattering of what you’ll find on their website at http://www.stvincent.org/.

Health and Healing physician presentation series
Weight management programs
Exercise consultations
Certified prenatal and postnatal massage therapy
338-4-HER, a nurse advice line for answers to women’s health questions
338-KIDS and kidshealthline.com, a nurse avdivce line for parents
Diabetes care
C.O.A.G clinic for those taking Coumadin and other anticoagulant medications
$49 Heartscan
Sports performance
Sponsor of Geist Half-marathon and Fishers Safety Day

Fammartino knows that the key to a successful hospital is inextricably tied up in service—to the community and to its people; a service that reaches mind, body, and spirit. The mission statement of this faith-based hospital reads:

Rooted in the loving ministry of Jesus as healer, we commit ourselves to serving all persons with special attention to all those who are poor and vulnerable. Our Catholic health ministry is dedicated to spiritually centered, holistic care, which sustains and improves the health of individuals and communities. We are advocates for a compassionate and just society through our actions and our words.

St. Vincent was started 130 years ago by the four Daughters of Charity. Today, their intent is reflected in the three doves of the St. Vincent logo, which represent the three aspects of holistic healing—body, mind, and spirit. Each of the St. Vincent facilities begins every morning with an 8 a.m. prayer time. Every meeting also starts with a spiritual reflection. Leaders at St. Vincent are offered spiritual training such as Lay Spiritual Formation, a two-year program offered by the Aquinas Institute of Theology, which Fammartino is currently taking.

Fammartino sees the spiritual aspect of health care just as important as the physical. “Not only is St. Vincent recognized as a top [health care] organization in the country, but we also emphasize spiritual healing. It’s part of who we are.”

Fammartino earned his Bachelor of Science in education in 1978, an associate degree in respiratory science in 1982, and his MBA in finance in 1992 from Youngstown State University in Ohio. He worked for 17 years at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown, Ohio. He and his wife Suzanne, owner of the Love at First Sight Floral and Design shop in Carmel, have four boys.

Ultimately, Fammartino points out that what is important in health care is making sure you serve your community in the best way possible, by efficiently streamlining the services to the community’s needs, thereby avoiding redundancy and saving money. “We’ve done our homework, looked at the demographics, and surveyed our community, and all of that has come
together to exactly what we’re putting together here right now,” he said.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Send me your media kit!

hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: "6486003", formId: "5ee2abaf-81d9-48a9-a10d-de06becaa6db" });