Draft:Saint Francis Health System

• Comment: Not much WP:SIGCOV to have a WP:STANDALONE article. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 06:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

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Saint Francis Health System is a Catholic, not-for-profit health system wholly governed and operated in eastern Oklahoma. Saint Francis is Oklahoma's largest healthcare network and, with more than 11,000 employees, the largest private employer based in eastern Oklahoma. In 2024, Premier's Pink AI recognized Saint Francis as one of the 15 Top Health Systems in the nation.

The health system is anchored by Saint Francis Hospital, a tertiary center providing the area's highest level of trauma and emergency services and a certified comprehensive stroke center. With more than 1,100 beds, it is the largest hospital in Oklahoma and the 10th largest hospital in the United States. It was ranked the best hospital in Oklahoma by U.S. News & World Report in 2024 for the eighth consecutive year.

Saint Francis Children's Hospital, located adjacent to Saint Francis Hospital, is eastern Oklahoma's only children's hospital. It has the region's only level IV neonatal intensive care unit.

With over 60,000 outpatient visits per year, Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital provides comprehensive outpatient mental health services, adult inpatient and outpatient care, senior behavioral health and the nationally recognized Laureate Eating Disorders Program.

Warren Clinic provides primary, specialty and urgent care physicians to patients at locations throughout eastern Oklahoma.

History

Saint Francis Hospital opened in 1960 in what had been a prairie far from Tulsa's commercial center. Tulsa oilman William K. Warren Sr. and his wife, Natalie Overall Warren, built the hospital through the W.K. Warren Foundation.

A devout Catholic, Warren attributed his success in life to his faith, which led him to establish the hospital's strong Catholic identity. The hospital was operated by the Adorers of the Precious Blood from 1960 to 1969. It subsequently had strong ties with the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word until 2000, when the hospital joined forces with the Religious Sisters of Mercy, which occupies a convent on the hospital's grounds. Warren named the hospital after Saint Francis Xavier, whose feast day, Dec. 3, was Warren's birthday. Saint Francis employees observe Saint Francis Serves Day annually on the first Saturday in December with acts of volunteer service throughout the region.

Natalie Warren selected the hospital's original exterior – pink modur stone – which has defined the health system's signature color ever since. She chose the color to appeal to patients and visitors no matter the daylight or weather.

Saint Francis Hospital started with 275 beds but grew rapidly as the city came to surround it. The hospital expanded to 735 beds in 1969 as the city began to grow around the hospital.

When his father retired in 1983, William K. Warren, Jr., became chairman of The William K. Warren Foundation and help lead a period of great growth for the healthcare system, including establishment of the Warren Clinic network of physicians in 1987, the opening of Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital in 1990, the establishment of the children's hospital in 1995, and construction of the new children's hospital building in 2008. That same year, the health system opened Saint Francis Hospital South about six miles south of the original campus.

In 1993, Saint Francis Health System and Tulsa-based St. John Medical Center (now Ascension Saint John), jointly formed a provider-sponsored health plan, CommunityCare, the only Oklahoma-owned company to offer HMO, PPO, Medicare HMO and Medicare Supplement plans.

In 2002, Jake Henry Jr. became the health system's CEO. He retired in 2021. That year, Dr. Cliff Robertson joined the health system as president and CEO.

John-Kelly Warren, grandson of the hospital's founder, became CEO of The William K. Warren Foundation in 2005 and now serves as chairman of the Saint Francis Health System Board of Directors.

Locations

The Saint Francis Health System includes:

• Saint Francis Hospital
• Saint Francis Hospital South
• Warren Clinic
• Saint Francis Children's Hospital
• Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital
• Saint Francis Heart and Vascular Institute
• Saint Francis Hospital Muskogee
• Saint Francis Hospital Vinita
• Saint Francis Glenpool
• Health Zone at Saint Francis

Saint Francis also manages the Oklahoma State University Medical Center in downtown Tulsa.

Further reading

• Medical facilities in Tulsa

External links

• Saint Francis Health System website