2008 — A year of change
Robert Driewer - CEO Newman Regional Health
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
AS 2008 comes to a close it provides an opportunity for each of use to reflect on what has been accomplished. It gives us a time to celebrate our success and to evaluate our progress and make adjustments to our plans for the next year. 2008 has been a year full of changes for the hospital. The loss of jobs in our community as a result of Tyson’s workforce reduction in January set the stage for many challenges. We felt the effects in declining volumes and decreased revenues. Our response has been to limit our expenses by evaluating each and every purchase, decrease overtime, improve productivity and reduce the use of more expensive contract agency nurses and employ our own nurses instead. Our financial and social service staff have worked to increase patient awareness of financial assistance programs. We also modified our payment policies to allow more patients to qualify for charity care.
At Newman Regional Health, we take our responsibility to serve the healthcare needs of this community very seriously. While we have tightened our purse strings, we continue to provide critical services such as Home Health and Emergency Care, and so important to those we serve. Of the many things we have accomplished in 2008, there is none more important to us than providing safe patient care. Bedside Medication Verification, or BMV for short, was rolled out at the end of 2007. We continued to fine-tune this barcode system, resulting in improvements in medication safety and blood administration.
A new fall risk assessment was implemented that has reduced the rate of patient falls. The nursing staff has also implemented hourly rounding on all patients, numerous initiatives to prevent complications, as well as many other safeguards based on best practices and national safety initiatives. Automated hand sanitizers inside and outside patient rooms, increased efforts in identification, and improved isolation techniques for MRSA and other resistant organisms have provided increased protection for our patient and visitors, reducing the chance of an infection. The most recent initiative began this past Monday when we implemented the new standardized color-coded ID wrist band alerting all staff to various patient precautions.
Newman joined hospitals across the country in implementing numerous quality measurements. Along with patient satisfaction rates, this quality data is now on our website as part of increasing transparency through voluntary public reporting. We’re especially proud of our Home Health department which achieved and maintained its national ranking of 98 percent.
We have also made great strides in improving patient services through the addition of new equipment and technology. More than $1.7 million in capital purchases was made in 2008 including a half million dollars in new radiology and imaging equipment. Another $440,000 was spent on new operating room equipment. Work continues on the 3 South renovation project which will improve patient comfort and create more private rooms.
Last, but certainly not least, we are very excited about the arrival of Drs. Trish Miller and Christina Faulkner, two obstetric/gynecology physicians, and several new visiting specialists.
On-line bill pay was added to our website, improving patient convenience. Disaster preparedness and numerous other training programs were held. Julie Stowe, our new Nursing Director will be starting next Monday. The list goes on, but it’s impossible to list all the changes and efforts we have made this year to better serve our community. If George Bernard Shaw is correct when he says “Progress is impossible without change;” then 2008 has been a year of good progress for Newman. Many challenges lie ahead and I want to assure you that you have our commitment in continuing our efforts to improve health-care services for our community.