With the recent closure of the Galesburg Cottage Hospital, OSF HealthCare St. Mary’s and Holy Family Medical Centers are prepared to continue to meet the needs of the Monmouth and Galesburg communities. In recent months, several new employees have been hired and the OSF job fair resulted in 82 new applications. To further assist patients in transferring care to OSF HealthCare, President and CEO Lisa DeKezel informs a new hotline has been established:
“We have established a new hotline dedicated to receiving calls to help patients of Cottage Hospital and Clinics transfer their care. We were getting many, many phone calls asking, ‘how do I transfer my care,’ ‘which providers are accepting new patients,’ which all of our providers are accepting new patients, and then ‘how do I make that happen seamlessly and what about the transfer of my records,’ so we did make the decision to best support our community to establish a hotline specifically for that work. That is staffed from 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday and then outside of those hours, patients are welcome to leave a message and our team will gladly call them back and assist them. That hotline number is 309-344-9438.”
As OSF HealthCare has hired many Cottage providers, DeKezel says in cases where possible, Cottage patients will be able to transfer and remain with their health care professionals. Again, the OSF HealthCare hotline number is 309-344-9438.
**Written by WMOI/WRAM Director of Communications Kelsey Crain**
