For years, Spokane-area hospitals have packaged health-care services for women in women's centers, or departments, and have done a considerable amount of marketing to promote those departments.

There's a new hospital operator in town, however, and that company, Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems Inc. (CHS), is still forming marketing strategies to promote women's services at its two new hospitals here, Deaconess Medical Center and Spokane Valley Hospital & Medical Center, which it bought in October.

The services targeted toward women range from obstetrics to breast-cancer screening to bone-density scanning. One of the most common varieties of services for women—obstetrics—is delivered in somewhat different ways at four major hospitals, which also include Sacred Heart Medical Center and Holy Family Hospital.


Deaconess, Valley


Deaconess' Women's Clinic, which is located at 1603 N. Belt, about two miles northwest of the hospital, provides care for women from adolescence to post-menopause, says Julie Holland, a hospital spokeswoman.

Its midwifery program is based at the Women's Clinic, where prenatal checkups are done, although its nurse midwives deliver babies at Deaconess. Kathy Bentley, one of the clinic's nurse midwives, has delivered more than 1,000 babies, Holland says.

In addition to delivering babies, the nurse midwives provide pregnancy testing, family-planning, gynecological examinations, breast-feeding consultation, and prenatal and postpartum care.

Hospitals often market specifically toward women, sometimes for services beyond just women's issues, Holland says.

"In households nationwide, it's generally the woman who makes health-care decisions," and hospital administrators keep that in mind as they devise their marketing approaches, she says.

Hospitals also rely on health-care professionals and service providers to distribute information about their programs, and if a patient needs to go to the hospital, many times his or her doctor plays a major role in deciding which hospital the patient will enter, she says.

Like Deaconess, Valley Hospital offers a breast-feeding clinic that includes free baby-weight checks.

"When babies are bottle-fed, you can measure how much the baby is taking in," Holland says. "With breast-feeding it's not so sure."

At the Valley Hospital breast-feeding clinic, mothers have formed a support group in which they share experiences.

In addition, Valley Hospital operates a Women's Imaging Center that offers digital mammography, ultrasound, and MRI imaging services to screen for disease such as breast cancer in its earliest detectable stages, when the chances for successful treatment are highest, she says. Deaconess also has a Breast Evaluation Center, which offers imaging and diagnostic services.

Holland says Deaconess and Valley hospitals both offer osteoporosis screening and consulting programs. Volunteers conduct free bone-density checks two days a week at both hospitals.


Sacred Heart Medical Center's services

Sacred Heart Medical Center's Women's Health Center, which opened at the hospital in 2004, consolidates many women's inpatient and outpatient services on the first and second floors of the hospital's seven-story west tower, says Shelly Maughan, director of women's health programs at the hospital.

The obstetrics department on the west tower's second floor includes labor-and-delivery rooms, a labor triage center in which patients are assessed to determine if labor has progressed enough for them to be admitted to the hospital to deliver their babies, and an elevator link to the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, which is on the next floor above, Maughan says.

Outpatient services are on the first floor, including a maternity clinic, osteoporosis screening area, a breast-feeding program, classrooms, a resource library with Internet access, a meditation room, and a gift shop that specializes in items for new mothers.

Sacred Heart is a major sponsor of the annual Women's Show & Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, which will be held April 17-19 this year. At the show, Sacred Heart distributes information about health and the hospital's health services. It also offers free blood-pressure, bone-density, and blood-sugar tests at the show.

The show, which is held at the Spokane Convention Center, generally has more than 100 vendors, ranging from cancer-treatment centers to health spas.

"We try to make it convenient for women to have one place to go to find information about various health issues," Maughan says of the show.

This year's show will feature the conclusion of a local weight loss challenge, similar to TV's Biggest Loser, and a healthy cook-off similar to Battle of the Chefs TV program.

Holy Family Hospital's offerings

Holy Family Hospital, which along with Sacred Heart is operated by nonprofit Providence Health Care, of Spokane, also participates in the Women's Show.

Women's services at Holy Family include obstetrics, gynecology, imaging, and health education.

For 25 years, the Family Maternity Center at Holy Family has offered suites to serve expectant mothers throughout labor, delivery, recovery, and postpartum care, says Heidi Wilson-Seger, Holy Family's perinatal educator.

Babies remain in the mother's room to encourage early bonding, Wilson-Seger says. Families are encouraged to witness the baby's first bath, weighing, measuring, and pediatric exam.

In-house obstetricians and nurse anesthetists are on duty after hours to help manage complicated labors and deliveries, including cesarean-section births, she says.

Gynecological consultation and surgeries also are offered at the hospital.

One focus of the hospital's orthopedics program is osteoporosis, a condition caused by thinning of the bones that's prevalent among women, says Ann McKeon, a Holy Family spokeswoman. The condition can be detected through a bone-density scan, she says.

Mammograms and ultrasound imaging are done through Holy Family's partner, Spokane-based Inland Imaging LLC, which has an outlet at the hospital, McKeon says.

Providence's and CHS's hospitals here join with Inland Northwest Health Services to offer health-education and support classes for women through INHS's Community Health Education & Resources program. Some courses that target women include Prepared Childbirth, Natural Childbirth, and Breast-feeding Basics.

The Prepared Childbirth course covers the stages of labor, breathing techniques, muscle toning, and relaxation, as well as the role of a support partner. The natural childbirth course is designed for women who've taken the prepared childbirth course and are planning to give birth without pain medications.