Mercy Health Care Sweeps Out Management

After a whopping public relations campaign in mid-October about changing the hospital's name from St. John's Mercy to simply Mercy, the first quarter of 2012 brought about a house-cleaning in top Mercy management.

Three people were let go January 18, the St. Louis Business Journal reported on Friday.

The trio:

• Jim Jaacks, executive vice president and chief administrative officer
• George Flynn, senior vice president of performance improvement
• Glenn Mitchell, chief medical officer

The Journal provided a hospital spokeperson saying the duties were to be handled by other staff, since the $4 billion health care organization was always looking for ways to streamline costs and reduce duplication.

Mercy took a direct hit from a tornado in Joplin, MO last year, which demolished its towering hospital—yet intends to re-build. MO Gov. Jay Nixon joined with Mercy President and CEO Lynn Britton in October for the name-change campaign, and thanked them for their Joplin efforts.

Mercy has pledged to build a telemedicine headquarters in Chesterfield over the next several years, at the corner of Clarkson-Olive roads and Highway 40/64.

Mercy is located on Ballas Road at Highway 40/64, just past the I-270 interchange if traveling from Chesterfield.