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Business of the Year: St. Joseph Hospital

Published Tuesday May 30, 2023

Author Matthew J. Mowry

Business of the Year: St. Joseph Hospital

St. Joseph Hospital has been serving the greater Nashua community for almost 115 years, growing into a 208-bed acute care hospital with more than 355,700 annual provider visits and more than 24,400 emergency department visits at its Nashua campus and its 11 outpatient locations.

The hospital is continuously looking for new and better ways to meet the needs of the growing Greater Nashua community, says, John A. Jurczyk, president of St. Joseph Hospital. St. Joseph Hospital has one of only three geriatric psychiatry units in the state, which accepted its first patients in December 2020. In 2017, the hospital launched its Mobile Health Clinic to bring health care services to underserved people in the community. The hospital’s mobile health clinic team worked with other organizations in the city to identify community health needs and barriers to create specific programs to address them, significantly expanding its outreach and services in 2022, Jurczyk says.

The St. Joseph Hospital Mobile Health Clinic team partnered with the city of Nashua’s Department of Public Health and Community Services for a winter booster blitz that administered over 1,000 COVID-19 vaccines to children. It also partners with local community centers, including the Nashua Soup Kitchen & Shelter, to provide medical treatment to uninsured and underinsured visitors, including midwifery services for homeless pregnant women. “Care for the whole person is part of our ministry,” says Jurczyk.

The hospital opened the St. Joseph School of Nursing in 1908, which continues to innovate to meet the demand for nurses. In May 2022, St. Joseph Hospital implemented the state’s first accredited nurse residency program and recently secured $2.9 million in federal funding to modernize the infrastructure of its nursing school.

And the hospital finds ways to meet the needs of its community beyond its critical health care mission. Since 1959, the hospital has provided Christmas baskets annually to families in need that include gifts, warm clothing and food. Through Joseph’s Closet, the hospital provides free durable medical equipment free to individuals in need, providing 1,320 pieces of medical equipment to 615 people in 2022. Through the Grey Nuns Thrift Shop, the hospital raised more than $10,000 in 2022 to support underprivileged people and provide free necessities to clients of social services agencies. “We are a community asset,” Jurczyk says.

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