For most of us, Valentine’s Day conjures roses, Hallmark cards, chocolate, and romance.
But Saint Valentine, or Valentinus, a pastor living in third-century Rome, wasn’t remembered for inventing love. He was remembered for practicing it, tending to the sick through acts of compassion.
Standing in the vein of that tradition is Dr. Matthew Bernard and his team at Covington Trace ER & Hospital, a modern institution founded on the belief that medical care, when practiced locally, compassionately, and empathetically, is a more meaningful form of love.
The Birth of Something New
Dr. Bernard remembers the exact moment he knew he wanted to become a physician. It was January 16, 1998, during the birth of his first child.
As his newborn son was whisked away, he remained by his wife’s side, watching the surgical aftermaths of a C-section unfold just beyond the drape.
“That was the moment,” he recalls. “The very day I decided to become a doctor.”
At the time, he was no stranger to fixing things. He had flunked out of college at sixteen, joined the Air Force at seventeen, and spent eight years as a mechanic, repairing aircraft and learning the discipline of making complex systems work flawlessly under extreme pressure.
Emergency medicine, with its urgency and breadth, proved a natural extension of that instinct.
After medical school and residency at LSU, he entered a healthcare system still reeling from Hurricane Katrina. He became known for stepping into emergency departments that were struggling and making them work again. Over two decades, Dr. Bernard helped stabilize ERs across Louisiana, training partners to take over, then moving on to the next challenge.
Eventually, a different question began to surface: What if he didn’t have to fix a broken ER system? What if he could build one from scratch?
“I went home and talked to my wife,” recounts Dr. Bernard. “I told her that I wanted to start a hospital from scratch in Mandeville.”
Relationship-Centered Healthcare
Six years and countless planning meetings later, Covington Trace ER & Hospital opened its doors in Mandeville. From the earliest architectural decisions to the smallest operational details, the goal was singular: to create a hospital where patients feel safe, seen, and genuinely cared for.
That vision is stewarded daily by what the team calls the “Core Four”: Dr. Bernard, COO Sarah Shipman, Chief Nursing Officer Dan Flynn, and operations leader Katie Palazzo.
Their connection runs deeper than résumés. Flynn first met Dr. Bernard more than twenty years ago as a New Orleans paramedic. Shipman, Flynn, and Palazzo all graduated from Fontainebleau High School the same year. The result is a leadership team bound by trust, shared history, and an unusual cohesion that shows up in every corner of the hospital.
“We're able to operate with a lot of integrity and efficiency because of our relationships,” says Dr. Bernard. “It’s a unique opportunity to be able to do that.”
The Luxury of Being Treated Empathetically
Inside its walls, Covington Trace ER & Hospital operates with three fully integrated arms, which include emergency services, inpatient admissions, and outpatient diagnostics, all available 24/7.
“Physicians can order outpatient CAT scans or labs at 2 a.m. on a Saturday,” Dr. Bernard says. “And we can do it without even blinking.”
Each month, the hospital admits about one hundred patients and serves over six hundred meals.
“I think we've got better food than some of the restaurants around us,” he says. “We really try to maintain a very high standard of care. And good food is good medicine.”
In addition to their famously freshly squeezed orange juice, Dr. Bernard himself bakes homemade focaccia for his team, topping it with rosemary harvested from the hospital’s own herb garden.
“He really spoils us,” says Katie Palazzo.
“A really significant feature that separates us from other hospitals is our intense focus on keeping our staff happy and supported,” Dr. Bernard adds. “Whether it's me literally breaking bread with our staff or making bread with them, we want to show them that we care for them. Through bonuses or genuine appreciation, caring for our staff is something we devote a great deal of time and attention to.”
This attention to staff is no mere afterthought.
“If our people are supported,” he explains, “the patient experience takes care of itself.”
In just over two years, Dr. Bernard’s philosophy has translated into 1,300 five-star Google reviews and a reputation that is spreading quickly across the Northshore.
Love Beyond the Walls
Patients often describe Covington Trace ER & Hospital as “a hotel that can also save your life.”
The phrase makes Dr. Bernard smile, and for good reason.
Here, experience matters. Pediatric patients receive numbing medication well before a needle ever appears. Rooms are outfitted with dimmer switches to ease headaches and nausea. Follow-up appointments with specialists are scheduled before discharge, sometimes for the very next day. Physicians routinely call patients after they return home, simply to check in.
“It’s like concierge medicine without the price tag,” he says.
The hospital’s commitment to the community extends well beyond medicine.
Dr. Bernard and his team actively support organizations such as Heroes Who Cook, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and the Humane Society, raising funds and awareness for some of the region’s most vulnerable populations.
“We're trying to be the community hospital as much as we can be,” he says. “It's medicine like it used to look eighty-five years ago, but with the technology of today.”
Love, Local and Lasting
Covington Trace ER & Hospital accepts all commercial insurance plans. At this time, the facility does not accept Medicare, Medicaid, or TRICARE, though efforts are ongoing to expand access responsibly. As with all emergency departments nationwide, federal law ensures patients are never responsible for more than their copay and deductible. There are no billing surprises.
Advanced imaging, board-certified emergency physicians on site at all times, and more than two hundred collective years of clinical experience among ten physician partners reinforce the hospital’s commitment to excellence.
In a healthcare landscape increasingly defined by scale and speed, Covington Trace ER & Hospital offers something that feels both new and profoundly ancient: a way of showing love to the community that puts the needs of others first.
And on this Valentine’s Day, that may be the greatest luxury of all.
Covington Trace ER & Hospital is located at 814 W. Causeway Approach in Mandeville and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For more information, or to reach the hospital directly, call (985) 951-8000 or visit covingtontraceer.com.
"It's medicine like it used to look eighty-five years ago, but with the technology of today."
Patients often describe Covington Trace as “a hotel that can also save your life.”