Connie Ruth, RN, ECC Quality Improvement Specialist and
Jamie Gittings, ECC Support Associate

“In 2001, a few years following the merger between Saginaw General and St. Luke’s Hospitals, Covenant HealthCare was preparing to combine the two emergency departments into one unified team in a new, freestanding facility.

In the months leading up to the grand opening of what we now know as the Covenant Emergency Care Center (ECC) on Cooper Avenue, we had to tally up all the equipment at Saginaw General and St. Luke's. We were both on the emergency room moving team for Saginaw General.

We spent months and months counting every scalpel blade, every forceps, every needle nose plier, everything the doctors and nurses use. We also inventoried office equipment, so Covenant knew exactly what needed to be ordered prior to moving into the new 47-bed unit. Outside of your normal work shift, you could volunteer for shifts of counting, inventorying and packing for the big move.

Jamie was assigned to compile and make all the patient forms universal between both organizations. This was before everything was computerized, so it was a huge undertaking. Saginaw General had their forms. St. Luke's had their forms. The Health Unit Coordinators used documents that were all a bit different from each other.

She went through every filing cabinet at both facilities to get a general idea of what was needed, so when the new ECC opened, every filing cabinet would be identical. If you needed a consent form, this is where you found all the consents possible.

There was no ‘theirs and ours’ anymore.”

Pictured: Mementos from Saginaw General and Covenant HealthCare

“The emergency department (ED) moves from Saginaw General and St. Luke’s Hospitals were scheduled for July 31, 2001, with the new Covenant HealthCare Emergency Care Center (ECC) Grand Opening to follow the next day on August 1.

The Saginaw General ED was located across the street at what we know as Covenant Harrison today. The night of the melding of the two EDs, Saginaw General stopped all emergency services at 10 o’ clock. Any patients we had were moved to the St. Luke’s ED via ambulance, which was attached to Covenant Cooper just down the hall from today’s ECC.

On moving night, we all came in around 11 o’clock at night sporting our green tie dye ‘watermelon’ team shirts. Our patients had already been transported to St. Luke’s, so we only had to move our equipment. St. Luke’s was doing the same thing simultaneously with its own moving team.

Both of us, along with other members from Saginaw General, as well as Connie’s husband and son, who was earning high school service hours, helped move that night.

The quickest route for us was to walk the equipment across the street and down the road into the new ECC building. We were lucky. It was a beautiful, warm summer night, so we didn’t have to worry about rain damaging any equipment. There was a big, gorgeous moon to light our journey along with a few streetlamps.

Every hospital bed we wheeled across the street had its side rails up and was mounted with items to the brim—IV poles, IV pumps, suctions—everything that went into that room was placed in the bed. They were all labeled with a room number indicating where they should be delivered. A crew was on site to set up and place everything where it went in each room.

As we’re moving, we're like, ‘We’re making history. We're combining two separate hospital EDs into one.’ Now you look at all that has happened 25 years past. Being part of that very first night was amazing.

We worried about moving a few items. One thing I remember vividly was unplugging the big copy machine and wheeling it out the door, down the cement sidewalk and across the street really carefully. That was a major, expensive piece of equipment at the time. Thinking back, we probably should have put it on a dolly… we had a lot of fun and laughs during that shift.

By 7 o’clock the next morning, the Saginaw General ED move was complete, and St. Luke’s began moving patients into the new ECC.

We made history that night. Who can say they moved into a freestanding ED, helping two hospitals come together? That's pretty significant. It was a lot of work, and seeing it all come together was a rewarding, magnificent thing.”

Pictured: Connie Ruth preparing for the move of the Emergency Department

Pictured: Photo Collage of the Emergency Department Preparing to Move

“Bringing the two emergency departments (EDs) together was a bit of a culture shock for everyone. The new Covenant Emergency Care Center (ECC) was unfamiliar territory for both St. Luke's and Saginaw General employees.

All of us were in a brand-new building that seemed so huge at the time. We went from 16 emergency beds at Saginaw General and 20 at St. Luke’s, plus six urgent care beds.

When the Covenant ECC opened in 2001, it had 47 beds and we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we're never going to fill that many beds!’ The ECC today has 67 beds—and we are definitely staying busy!

In the months leading up to the melding of the two EDs, we prioritized learning to work together as a team. You had to get comfortable with new staff and doctors you hadn’t worked with before. When we merged in 1998 and became Covenant HealthCare, physicians began working at both hospitals, and nurses would switch back and forth to learn the ins and outs of both facilities.

You would come in and look at your schedule and see what days you were at St. Luke's and what days you were at Saginaw General. We also swapped shifts at times so day nurses could learn nights and vice versa. We did that for quite a few months and got to know each other’s patient clientele.

Saginaw General had a psychiatric unit at the time and the regional neonatal intensive care unit. St. Luke’s saw burn patients and other types of traumas we did not see often. We hadn’t realized there were so many differences in ED patient populations that were just across the street from each other.

We did a lot of fun team building and ‘Walk in My Shoes’ activities to get to know one other before we moved to the new building. Personality testing was big. You would wear red-, green-, blue- or yellow-colored dots on your badge representing your personality traits so you knew who you would work best with.

Aside from employees getting used to the changes, the community also had a learning curve. Patients were used to seeing one person’s face as their caregiver at their facility of choice, and now they were seeing someone else. Or they would call and talk to the same person at the office regularly, and now they're talking to two different people.

There was a lot of community education in the newspapers. The marketing team shook up our billboards and mix different people together so the community could get used to seeing faces from both hospitals side-by-side as one team. It was an adjustment for everyone but really professionally done.

Ultimately, joining forces helped us provide the best care possible to our community. Two ED teams combining their expertise and learning to work together for a greater purpose—now that is extraordinary.”

—Connie Ruth, RN, Covenant HealthCare ECC Quality Improvement Specialist (Former ER Nurse, Saginaw General Hospital)

—Jamie Gittings, Covenant HealthCare ECC Support Associate (Former ER Health Unit Coordinator, Saginaw General Hospital)

Pictured: (L-R) Connie Ruth, RN and Jamie Gittings

Pictured: (L-R) Jamie Gittings and Connie Ruth, RN