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Blog Archive
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2007
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May
(18)
- "Hospital unveils evaluation"
- Doloresco discusses Joint Commission findings
- Citizens Commission - next meeting
- Listen to their stories
- Drinking sand
- "Hospital workers' morale in question"
- Citizens Commission meeting - May 22
- "How about some constructive solutions?"
- "What's Next?"
- "LifePoint says acquisitions area of renewed focus"
- "Public seeks hospital solutions"
- "Angry crowd blasts hospital"
- Citizens Committee public hearings begin May 8
- How about some good news for a change?
- Letter in Tuesday's paper
- Letters in Sunday's paper
- Public Forums - times and rules
- Citizens Commission meets tonight
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May
(18)
Letter to Employees, February 7, 2007
Dear DRMC Associates, Physicians and Volunteers:
Thank you for all your efforts to provide healthcare to the citizens of the Dan River Region. Providing healthcare, saving lives, and improving the quality of the lives of our friends, family and neighbors is a high calling, and you are answering that call each and every day. Delivering on the high expectations of those we serve is a tremendous responsibility, shared by everyone – physicians, nurses, technical and support staff, volunteers, managers and administration.
It’s no secret that to be successful in meeting this responsibility, we must work together. We have seen in our Emergency Department the good things that can happen when staff, physicians and management work together effectively. The reduction in wait times and fewer patients leaving without treatment are ample proof. You should all be proud of this accomplishment.
It is our hope that all of us on the hospital team, and indeed the entire community, can come together around Danville Regional and make it a source of genuine pride and positive economic activity for this area. Coming together is way overdue.
When Mr. Bill Carpenter, CEO of LifePoint and three other corporate officers were in our hospital in January, they openly apologized for mistakes made at the onset of the hospital sale. Knowing what they know at this point in time, they would have definitely done things differently. LifePoint has committed the support and resources needed to make DRMC a hospital of which we all can be proud. In addition, we, as leaders in different areas of the hospital, commit our time and energy to that same goal.
The important thing to remember is that on one person or small group can make this hospital successful. It will take the support and commitment of every single one of us who are connected to DRMC in any way. We need your help to make this happen.
Going forward won’t be easy. Any organization of this size and complexity has issues.
But it is time to move on, and move ahead. Constructive suggestions are always OK, and in fact welcomed, because there is almost always more than one “right way” to accomplish goals. Bitter, destructive criticism isn’t OK. There’s a reason they call it “holding grudges,” because the only person who feels bad is the one holding them. It’s time for us to let these go.
Good things can happen if we channel our energies on positive activities. Never has this been more important than now.
During 2006 and 2007 $26 million is being invested to create some good things – the build out of the 5th and 6th floors, the new radiation/oncology equipment, addition of PACS and a new state of the art CT machine. These improvements, coupled with your caring approach, will provide better, more complete care for our patients, close to home.
Recent patient satisfaction scores have improved, and will continue to improve as long as we focus our efforts on providing the best care for our patients and support for each other. We also fully recognize the importance of improving staff and physician satisfaction, and the positive impact this will have on the patients we serve.
We also have a big challenge that will require everyone’s best – our Joint Commission accreditation review, which will occur sometime in the next couple of months. When you think about it, it is not a stretch to say that the lifeblood of this community is dependent upon Danville Regional maintaining Joint Commission accreditation.
Joint Commission accreditation is a key to the continued success of one of the largest employers in the region, and the place where the majority of our citizens come to receive healthcare. An accredited hospital makes the community more attractive for residents who already are here, and also for those people and their employers who are looking for a good place to live, work, play and invest. It also directly impacts the livelihood of all associates and physicians.
We need to place a tremendous amount of importance and urgency around preparing for Joint Commission, because accreditation is vital to all of us. While some might think loss of accreditation hurts LifePoint, the real losers are those of us who live and work in this community. We must join together to protect one of our most valuable community assets. Our region’s economic recovery depends on it.
So we go back to our original points: we are fortunate to be in a position to serve others, which is a tremendous responsibility we accept every day. All of us want to make this a better place to work, and a better place for our neighbors to receive treatment. We are committed to supporting you and know that together we will make DRMC the very best it can be. We appreciate each of you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Betty Jo Foster
Chairman, DRMC Advisory Board
Arthur M. Doloresco
President/ CEO
Richard A. Smith, M.D.
Chief of Staff
27 comments:
From Lifepoints SEC filing:
"We believe that non-urban healthcare markets are attractive because of the following factors:
• Less Competition. Non-urban communities have smaller populations with fewer hospitals and other healthcare service providers. We believe that the smaller populations and relative significance of the hospital in these markets may discourage the entry of alternate non-hospital providers, including outpatient surgery centers, rehabilitation centers and diagnostic imaging centers.
• Community Focus. We believe that non-urban areas generally view the local hospital as an integral part of the community. Therefore, we believe patients and physicians tend to be more loyal to the hospital.
• Acquisition Opportunities. Currently, not-for-profit and governmental entities own most non-urban hospitals. These entities often have limited access to the capital needed to keep pace with advances in medical technology. In addition, these entities sometimes lack the management resources necessary to control hospital expenses, recruit and retain physicians, expand healthcare services and comply with increasingly complex reimbursement and managed care requirements. As a result, patients may migrate to, may be referred by local physicians to, or may be encouraged by managed care plans to travel to, hospitals in larger, urban markets. We believe that, as a result of these pressures, many not-for-profit and governmental owners of non-urban hospitals who wish to preserve the local availability of quality healthcare services are interested in selling or leasing these hospitals to companies, like ours, that are committed to the local delivery of healthcare and that have greater access to capital and management resources."
Interesting....
Apparently we HAD "access to the capital needed to keep pace with advances in medical technology."
We were making millions and spending it to increase tech. and services.
Apparently we DIDN'T "lack the management resources necessary to control hospital expenses"
Again, we were "making" millions.
Apparently we DIDN'T "lack the management resources necessary to recruit and retain physicians"
More have left AFTER Lifepoint.
Apparently we DIDN'T "lack the management resources necessary to comply with increasingly complex managed care requirements"
Accredited BEFORE Lfpt. Denied after.
More from the first post.
here's the link http://www.secinfo.com/dsVsf.23Yc.htm#1stPage
Operating Philosophy
We are committed to operating general, acute care hospitals in growing, non-urban markets. As a result, we adhere to an operating philosophy that is focused on the unique patient and provider needs and opportunities in these communities. This philosophy includes a commitment to:
• improving the quality and scope of available healthcare services;
• providing physicians a positive environment in which to practice medicine, with access to necessary equipment, office space and resources;
• providing an outstanding work environment for employees;
• recognizing and expanding the hospital’s role as a community asset; and
• continuing to improve each hospital’s financial performance.
Even more;
Improve Expense Management. We seek to control costs by, among other things, reducing labor costs by improving labor productivity and attempting to decrease the use of contract labor, when appropriate, controlling supply expenses through the use of a group purchasing organization and reducing uncollectible revenues. We have implemented cost control initiatives that include appropriately adjusting staffing levels according to patient volumes, modifying supply purchases according to usage patterns and providing training to hospital staff in more efficient billing and collection processes. Our total operating expenses decreased as a percentage of revenues from 78.8% in 2001 to 77.4% in 2002. We believe that as our company grows, we will likely benefit from our ability to spread fixed administrative costs over a larger base of operations.
• Retain and Develop Stable Management. We seek to retain the executive teams at our hospitals to enhance medical staff relations and maintain continuity of relationships within the community. We make a commitment to the rural communities we serve by focusing our recruitment of managers and healthcare professionals to those who wish to live and practice in the communities in which our hospitals are located. In addition, these hospital leaders may purchase our common stock under our stock purchase plans.
"We seek to retain the executive teams at our hospitals"
How many CEO's have we had?
More evidence of the Death Warrant we are under for decent medical care in Danville. Thank the Lord for the visionary people in neighboring towns who have given us Centra Health and Moses Cone, etc. We DO have choices. And may God help the ones who are dragged unconscious and dying into DRMC.
And it must always be said that the blame for this lies not with the nurses and staff--hard-working and beaten down--but with the cold, callous out-of-town managers who plucked us as "low-hanging fruit" to be sucked and tossed away.
Signed DRY FORK
"discourage the entry of alternate non-hospital providers,"
Didn't a local physician open his own pain clinic after Lifepoint gutted ours? Let all but 2 pt nurses and the secretary leave and fail to sign a contract with the docs for months?
"• providing physicians a positive environment in which to practice medicine, with access to necessary equipment, office space and resources;
• providing an outstanding work environment for employees;"
?????????????????????
"Didn't a local physician open his own pain clinic after Lifepoint gutted ours? Let all but 2 pt nurses and the secretary leave and fail to sign a contract with the docs for months?"
I've also noticed the "hourly" unit secretary has been partially replaced by some of that "contract labor" they are so keen on eliminating. Have to wonder how much a couple of RN's from outside the hospital brought in at "time and a half" compares to the pittance they pay secretarys. That was a real cost saving move.
Give me a break...it was no way near perfect pre-lifepoint either. the difference? The community is now looking with a microscope.
If you didn't think we had regulatory issues before it was because we often did not look very closely and the Joint Commission process has changed dramatically since our last survey.
Physicians? They were all happy before because they whined and got what they wanted. They abused nurses and were allowed to do so. They demanded and the got return for their temper tantrums. they have lost power. They don't like it.
Lifepoint has made mistakes but please do not think this hospital was perfectly managed prior. There was waste at every juncture pre-Lifepoint. As for the ever changing CEOs...we keep driving them away! Nobody cared before.
Points taken, however I doubt we are driving them away.
Here's the real question though. No one can dispute we were making millions annually before Lifepoint. Wouldn't it have been a lot smarter and easier to have managed it ourselves? Based on the cuts lifepoint has implemented imagine what we're making now...to pay a bunch of "o"'s and stockholders.
Any of you can argue until you are blue in the face, we are not better off. Any way you cut it, if the boys were smart enough to sell us, they were surely smart enough to help us mange our millions and eliminate some of the waste turning millions into more millions. Keeping the money in the institution where it can be used to keep adequate staffing, cleanliness, expansion etc.
True, but we could ponder what-if's all day long. Let's just hope some miraculous way we end up non-profit again or at the very least under the direction of Moses Cone or someone similar.
Danville Register and Bee
May 30, 2007
DANVILLE -- Art Doloresco, CEO of Danville Regional Medical Center, shared details of the Joint Commission's March evaluation of the hospital with business leaders at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast this morning.
"It is only the second time in the United States that a hospital has revealed the Joint Commission's decision," he said.
For details about what earned the hospital a preliminary denial of accreditation, read Thursday's Register & Bee.
"It is only the second time in the United States that a hospital has revealed the Joint Commission's decision," he said.
A service oversight comm. has only
done this twice bull.
Do any of these people have a clue. AND you can look it up on the WWW. Morons.
"It is only the second time in the United States that a hospital has revealed the Joint Commission's decision,"
I thought that was a pretty brazen statement.
The man is a congenital liar, and the people he's talking to don't know any better.
Thanks, I clicked on www.morons and I saw a nursing director who psychotically drinks starbucks and spends her days in self promotion versus attempting to perform her job which she is grossly unskilled to perform.
Are you taling about Ashby's mole or Ruth's?
who's who?
difficult to make a distinction
She is always at Ruth's side and they both spend much of their day being critical of those who are trying to work. The superior attitude is sickening.
But yes when Dr. Bob had the power she aligned with him as well. She has a way of aligning with the one in control and will change camps at a moments notice.
I don't think Dr. Bob's "mole" is a bad person, just scared. She may be trying to protect herself in all the chaos around her.
Well, she put herself in the spineless position she's in now and has lost a great deal of respect from her staff and peers.
But she won't realize that until "mama Ruth" is gone. No, I take that back, she'll then align herself with the next person she thinks is calling the shots and on and on and on.
You have her nailed. Say the right thing or what people want to hear and they think you are wonderful. They spend their days laughing at everyone else. What they do not understand is that the people they are laughing at are not idiots and have lost all respect and trust. I cry every night because I report to person I can not trust.
Can anyone see the cancer in this organization is Ruth and her groupies? nursing is becoming a laughing stock more so then when Grosssman was there. They have put themselves on an island and only the "special" are invited on.
Groupies as in Sharon and Mark?
Poor things. It's the only way they survive in the hospital. If either of them had to do an "honest" days work (like so many others) they too would not be here.
Look at their history, one hasn't been able to get hired any where else and the other just slips on a pair of slides (very professional), grabs a cup of roast and socializes all day just to take info back to Ruth.
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