Saturday, March 31, 2007

Hospital is people's business

Star Tribune - letter to the editor
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
(Note: this letter ran at the same time that the Star Tribune printed a copy of Coy Harville's letter to the editor which is posted below....ALSO, this letter was run in the Register and Bee on April 4)

Of all the horror stories and deceptions coming out of Lifepoint's Danville Regional Medical Center, the most disgusting has to be the callous words of CEO Art Doloresco when asked about the hospital's probationary status in terms of its accreditation.
According to the newspaper, he said, in effect, that it is none of our business to know the areas where the hospital failed in the inspection that landed it on probation.
Whose business does he think it is? He says it's between him, the failing department, and the accreditation group.
Nonsense! It is primarily the business of us poor people who have to risk our lives going to the hospital.
How can anyone make an intelligent decision without knowing which services to stay away from?
Doesn't Doloresco realize that the only answer to his policy is for prospective patients to run from the place?
Above all, his statement shows clearly that he doesn't even think in terms of what's good for the patients.
It's one thing for Lifepoint to think we are all idiots, which they clearly think we are. It is quite another for them to treat us openly with such contempt.
What do we have to do to run them out of town and get back a decent hospital?

Mary
Danville

Yin and Yang

A couple different points of view in Sunday's letters to the editor...

http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350505600&path=%21news%21editor

Saturday, March 24, 2007

"A Change for the Worst"

(Register & Bee)
To the editor:
After the last letter I wrote concerning our LifePoint hospital, I was summoned to a small meeting in Danville with William Carpenter, the CEO from Tennessee, as well as the local CEO, Art Doloresco, and former local CEO Jess Judy. I understand they held a number of such meetings aimed at putting out the fires of discontent.
In my group, they offered urgent promises about fixing the things wrong at LifePoint’s Danville Regional Medical Center and working hard to win the shattered confidence of the community. I try always to assume the best about people, so I accepted their promises and waited.That was two months ago, on Jan. 22. What’s happened since then?The main thing that has happened is that Danville Regional, after enjoying decades of top ratings (and even commendations) from the accreditation panels of the Joint Commission, has in effect been placed on probation. Under LifePoint management, Danville Regional is now operating under a “preliminary denial of accreditation.”

It is nothing short of a disgrace.

How can this be, when I heard the CEO of this $2 billion hospital chain sit and state that everything possible was being done to fix the problems? His underlings sat there and nodded in agreement. How can things be so horribly wrong when they had been so very right? Keep in mind that Danville Regional was at the top of its game when LifePoint bought it less than two years ago.
To say the least, my confidence is shaken after personally listening to such bold assurances two months ago. The men I met with made a big point of insisting that Danville Regional is as much our community hospital as it was before it was sold to LifePoint. But do they mean what they say? It’s as if they do not understand one of the basics we all learn in our life experiences - we can never fix our problems until we admit we have them.
The first thing LifePoint should do is make public the Joint Commission report, including details about the areas of the hospital that flunked the inspection. Doloresco called those points of failure “a private matter between me, the hospital and the commission,” according to a news story. Such an arrogant statement has no place at the table.
As a matter of public health and safety, we at least deserve to know the areas of the hospital that are in trouble. With that information, the public can make more informed decisions about which services are safe at Danville Regional.
Meanwhile, it is high time for the men who secretly sold our hospital and got us into this situation to come forward with our $200 million and help us find a solution.

COY HARVILLE
Danville

Friday, March 23, 2007

Citizens Commission website update

So much for an open forum...

First, the link to the archives of public comments on the Citizens Commission website was removed.
Bad, but not terrible, because the old links to the archive pages still worked. So I posted them on this blog.

Today? Click on one of the links below and it takes you a big white page with "The page cannot be found"

Oh well. I guess it was too good of an idea. Hopefully, members of the Citizens Commission will come to this blog to keep on top of public comment related to events at DRMC.

Monday, March 19, 2007

"A lost opportunity"

Danville Register & Bee - editorial
March 19, 2007

Danville Regional Medical Center missed a huge opportunity last week to silence some of its critics. It was a misstep that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Last week, the hospital announced that it had received a “preliminary denial of accreditation” from the Joint Commission, a national health care accreditation organization.

Here’s what Danville Regional’s CEO, Art Doloresco, said about that in a hospital news release: “Danville Regional Medical Center is accredited today, and we have every intention to remain accredited. The hospital will continue to participate in the Medicare and other payor programs while it works to address the requirements for improvement. While we have considerable work to do, the Joint Commission was complimentary of the effort of our staff and physicians and our commitment to fulfill the mission of the Medical Center to provide excellent healthcare. We will work in partnership with the Joint Commission to uphold the high standards of safe, quality patient care.”

But when Doloresco was asked exactly what areas had concerned the Joint Commission, he told a reporter for this newspaper that it was a “private matter between me, the hospital and the commission.”

A private matter? Really? Danville’s only hospital has received a “preliminary denial of accreditation” and it’s a private matter?

LifePoint Hospitals Inc. has taken a lot of criticism in this community for not only its management of Danville Regional Medical Center, but for the sale of the hospital itself. In fairness, though, it’s not LifePoint’s fault the hospital was sold.

But everything that’s happened since the hospital sale was finalized in July 2005 is on
LifePoint, and here’s the opportunity that was missed. Telling the community what the Joint Commission found wrong during its on-site inspection, what was being done to fix the problems and how LifePoint would make sure this never happens again would have raised

LifePoint’s stature in the community it claims to want to serve.
Openness in the face of bad news builds confidence. In this case, it could have finally put LifePoint on the public relations offensive in Danville.

Calling the preliminary denial of accreditation at Danville’s only hospital a “private matter” will do nothing to improve LifePoint’s standing among the people it hopes to win over. It’s too bad LifePoint has missed an opportunity of this magnitude.

http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350289737&path=%21news%21opinion

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

"Probe cites hospital weak spots"

Commission finds areas of Danville Regional that need to be improved to be accredited.

Danville Register & Bee
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

DANVILLE - Danville Regional Medical Center’s status as a fully accredited institution could change in the near future if certain improvements are not made.
Danville Regional sent out a news release Wednesday afternoon verifying that it has received a “Preliminary Denial of Accreditation” from The Joint Commission, which is the largest nonprofit health care accrediting body responsible for evaluating the quality of care at hospitals across the United States.
Commission spokeswoman Elizabeth Zhani said Wednesday that the evaluation is “not final,” adding her group is still reviewing the results of a survey it conducted Feb. 13-16.
“At this time, (Danville Regional) is still fully accredited,” she said.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) use commission accreditations as a basis for determining which hospitals qualify for Medicare or Medicaid reimbursements.
But Zhani said it is ultimately up to that federal agency to make this decision and a lack of commission accreditation does not necessarily mean a hospital will no longer receive these reimbursements.
Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco said Wednesday that the commission surveyors found some areas the hospital needed to improve that could prevent it from being fully accredited.
“We are already working hard to make the improvements that are required,” he said in the hospital news release.
When asked to elaborate, Doloresco described the areas of improvement as a “private matter between me, the hospital and the commission.”

Read the rest of the article at http://www.registerbee.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=DRB%2FMGArticle%2FDRB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173350219666&path=!news

Now available...Citizens Commission Website!

Here is a link to the Citizens Commission website...

http://www.danville-va.gov/page.asp?menuid=2820&sub1menuid=2824&sub2menuid=10761

In addition to contact information for each of the commission members, there is also a "Public Comment Form" and a "Comments" archive.

I encourage you to visit their site often and provide them with valuable information to assist them in their mission. Please encourage others you know who may not visit this blog to visit the Commission's site....it's very important that they get feedback from all levels in the Danville region (including employees, patients, and the general public).

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

"Preliminary Denial of Accreditation"

That is Joint Commission's verdict on LPNT-DRMC.

Not Accredited...

Not "Provisionally Accredited"...

Not even "Conditionally Accredited"....

Preliminary Denial of Accreditation.

According to Joint Commission's website:
Preliminary Denial of Accreditation results when there is justification to deny accreditation to the organization as usually determined by the number of not compliant standards that exceed established thresholds at the time of survey. The decision is subject to appeal prior to the determination to deny accreditation; the appeal process may also result in a decision other than Denial of Accreditation.
http://www.jointcommission.org/GeneralPublic/Decisions.htm

Monday, March 12, 2007

Don't forget...

The Citizen's Committee meets tonight (Mar 13).
The meeting will be held
at the Danville Municipal Building conference room (instead of at the hospital). The meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. tonight.

Accreditation countdown...

Week #4....still no word.

Friday, March 9, 2007

"Second verse...same as the first...."

Thanks to Steve from Ringgold, I've been doing some interesting reading about Palo Verde Hospital in California.
Take a moment to do some reading about their transition from Lifepoint back to a community-based hospital. I would recommend visiting this page on their site:
http://www.mypvh.org/Archive.asp
Scroll down to "PVHD Board Minutes" and then select 05/05/2005 (page 2, section III).

When Lifepoint exited the picture in January of 2006, a new management team took over. From other sources I have read, the new management had to deal with quite a few issues just to survive...a 25% reduction in staff (including key managers), litigation with their medical staff and the physical plant was in disrepair. And, they were paying exorbitant contract pay rates to keep nurses....sound familiar?

Not knowing the full story of Palo Verde, I am certainly not saying that it is an apples-to-apples comparison (they are a much smaller hospital, for one), but it is worth reading just the May 5, 2005 board minutes to hear familiar refrains.

Time to make your voice heard...

Committee seeks input on hospital
The group probing problems at Danville Regional Medical Center is planning public forums and a Web site.
Danville Register & Bee
Friday, March 9, 2007
DANVILLE - The Citizen’s Committee Related to the Danville Regional Medical Center hopes to have at least three public forums so residents can voice their opinions about the hospital’s quality of care.
Committee Chairman Jim Houser said he wants at least one hearing to take place in Danville, Pittsylvania County and Caswell County, N.C., because those are the three localities served by the hospital.
He said the city’s information technology department also is building a special Web site where people can share their thoughts about the hospital if they do not want to testify at a public meeting.
“(Mayor Wayne Williams) wanted for us to report what the public believes is or is not working with the hospital,” Houser said at the committee’s first official meeting Thursday night at the hospital, just two days after Williams formally introduced the group at a City Council meeting.
The seven committee members are currently working out the details, such as the time and place, for the hearings and hope to have a special meeting where hospital employees can share their feelings anonymously.
The committee also reviewed a recent batch of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems data that gave Danville Regional an overall quality score of 3.46 on a scale of 0-4. Bill Keith, chief operating officer at Danville Regional, said this data is collected by a private contractor and used by the federal government to rank hospitals on 13 different fields.
The hospital had an overall quality score of 3.29 in August and the average LifePoint hospital had an overall quality score of 3.28. LifePoint Hospitals Inc. completed its $210 million acquisition of Danville Regional Medical Center on June 30, 2005.
Danville Regional scored above the average LifePoint score in six fields, including a nurse’s ability to explain things in a way a patient could understand and a staff member’s ability to explain the uses for new medicine.
Committee member Linda Green thanked Keith for explaining the data but said the commission needed more information to evaluate the hospital particularly when it came to emergency room wait times, the amount of patients leaving without treatment, employee satisfaction and patient-to-staff ratios.
“When I was talking about metrics (at a brief informal meeting Tuesday), I was talking about standard benchmarks we can use to compare the hospital to other hospitals,” she said, adding she wanted data specific to hospitals that are the same size as Danville Regional Medical Center and located in similar areas.
Each committee member said they had already received several calls about the hospital since the group’s formation.
The committee is asking city clerk Annette Crane to take the minutes of its meetings instead of Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco, who volunteered for the job at the group’s Tuesday meeting.
The group also is going to hold their regular, open meetings at a Danville Municipal Building conference room instead of at the hospital. The group’s next meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Taking the message to the people

Hospital CEO speaks to seniors about mistakes, changes
Art Doloresco announced that there will be a groundbreaking next week for a vault at the Radiation Oncology Center.
Register & Bee
Thursday, March 8, 2007
DANVILLE - After speaking to a group of senior citizens gathered Wednesday at Ballou Recreation Center, Art Doloresco said he wished he could spend all his time in those types of meetings.
The seniors had come together for their weekly luncheon and to hear Doloresco, chief executive officer of Danville Regional Medical Center, talk about the mistakes the hospital has made since LifePoint purchased it in 2005 and to assure them that the hospital cares about them as much as their doctors and nurses do.
“There have been a lot of changes,” he said, “and some of them, frankly, weren’t that good, but now we’re backtracking and trying to change that.”
Doloresco cited the opening of the fifth floor of the Landon Wyatt Jr. Tower and the future opening of the sixth floor of the tower as positives.
“When we’re finished, all the patient care from the old part of the building will be in a new environment, which is better for the patients and staff,” he said.
Doloresco also announced that there will be a formal groundbreaking next week for a vault at the Radiation Oncology Center, which will house a new linear accelerator to better treat cancer patients.
He credited the teamwork at the hospital for bringing about improvements in the Emergency Department, where wait times and the number of patients who leave without being seen have decreased.
“The entire effort was a team effort,” Doloresco said. “We have some really great people.”
Citing a change in an old policy as a positive, he said that until recently applications for employment were not taken on Fridays, but that has now been changed.
“I’ve seen hospitals in much worse situations, but this one is very resilient and has people who work very hard,” Doloresco said.
He admitted that there are times when Danville Regional is short on nurses, but said the hospital is “beefing up the staffing to cover as many situations as we can.”
“We have probably had 80 to 85 nurses leave, but we have recruited 50 to 60,” Doloresco said.
The audience had very few questions for Doloresco, although one person complimented the hospital on new pre-admission procedures and one complained about a food tray that couldn’t be reached.
Doloresco said the same problem with a tray happened recently in his father’s room, and he said if that ever happened again at Danville Regional to call and let him know.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

What do you think? Should we make this our new slogan?


Letter to the Editor - "Not all that much longer?"

To the editor:
Less than two years ago, Danville Regional Medical Center was a nonprofit hospital. Its main focus was health care and expansion to provide broader health care. Now with LifePoint Hospitals Inc. at the helm, it has a split focus - health care and profits. The skilled doctors and nurses of this area can certainly handle the health care side, but judging from its first 19 months, LifePoint could use some schooling on the business side.
Anyone with a miniscule amount of business savvy knows that to be successful, a company must have quality employees who believe in their product and trust their employer.
LifePoint has breezed through several CEOs and it replaced a state-of-the-art computer system with one that actually makes it easy for patients not to get charged for expensive procedures, in addition to being slow and cumbersome to work on. LifePoint has allowed nurses, technicians and other staff members with years of experience to resign from departments that are already understaffed, without so much as a thank-you, would you reconsider or an exit interview. Then it brought nurses and staff in from outside at double pay to fill in.Maybe that’s LifePoint’s strategy. If they treat people poorly enough, employees will leave on their own accord, saving LifePoint from having to have layoffs and pay unemployment. Then it will be able to say, “We didn’t go in and slash and burn jobs, the people in Danville just couldn’t handle change.” When you force people to work in a condescending, secretive environment, they cannot help but worry and speculate about their future, neither of which is good for morale or allows them to take pride in their work and employer. Your employees are your greatest asset, and if you continue to treat them as a second-rate liability, they will eventually learn to act as such. Danville Regional is certainly getting its fair share of press, but can anything more than lip service be done? I cannot help but believe that if this were the old nonprofit Danville Regional, the groundswell from the staff and community would elicit more concrete, productive actions from Danville City Council. I also believe that if the five who sold the hospital were true leaders - and truly had what was best for the community at heart - they would have stepped up long before now to try to right their wrong. That being said, who among us has the courage and fortitude to actually step up and get the ball rolling?
Ideally, I would like to see a committee made up of Pete Castiglione, Sherman Saunders, Danny Marshall, Bill Fuller and Coy Harville. Seated before them and answering questions would be LifePoint’s current CEO, Art Doloresco, and the five local business leaders who got us into this mess. Actually though, a little research might forgo the need for that type of meeting. In just a couple of hours, I was able to glean some eye opening facts from the Internet.
There is an incredible blog on the Internet dedicated to Danville Regional and the LifePoint fiasco. Dozens of links to business, news and health care Web sites provide some interesting facts about LifePoint and the changes at Danville Regional. A little reading and a few mouse clicks will cause anyone to have concern for the future of our hospital.
STEVE
Ringgold

EDIT: Hey Steve from Ringgold....thanks for mentioning the blog in your letter!

Citizens Committee Named

Hospital commission takes shape
Danville Register & Bee
Wednesday, March 7, 2007


DANVILLE - Seven Dan River Region residents have been tasked with finding out exactly what is wrong with the Danville Regional Medical Center and figuring out how to fix it.
“Every one of you will be able to offer a truly objective recommendation that our community can take to heart,” Mayor Wayne Williams said Tuesday night as he introduced the Citizens Committee to Danville City Council.
Williams told the group that he wanted them to hold a series of meetings with community members over the next several weeks to discuss what is both good and bad about the care offered at the hospital, especially since LifePoint Hospitals Inc. purchased it in July 2005.
The hospital commission would then use this information to come up with a list of key problems the hospital faced with its quality of care and work with LifePoint and an outside organization to come up with ways to address them.
“(This task will be) immensely complicated and I do not envy you at all,” Danville Regional CEO Art Doloresco told the group, adding he would be happy to provide the commission with any information it wanted and even volunteered to take minutes of its meetings.
Williams told the commission that he wanted it to provide council with its final report in the next 90 days and that he wanted regular updates on the commission’s work to take place at every council meeting. He then walked out the door and let the group get to work.
Commission members include Jim Houser, Clarissa Knight, David Caldwell, Arlene Creasy, Linda Green, Samuel Griffith and Robert Whitt.
Within 45 minutes, the group had chosen Houser, an environmental health specialist with the Virginia Department of Health, and Knight, an assistant superintendent with Pittsylvania County Public Schools, as its co-chairs.
“I’m looking at three things: accountability, plain truth and a vision for the future,” Houser said, adding that his biggest concern was to divide “what has been sensationalized from what is the factual truth.”
The group has scheduled its first formal meeting for 6 p.m. Thursday in the hospital’s main conference room. Houser said it would probably take a few weeks before the commission is ready to schedule any public forums.

Monday, March 5, 2007

So, what's new at the foundation?

Back in December, the Danville Regional Foundation posted a release on its site that a “comprehensive assessment of the interests and concerns of the region” would take place in 2007. Wonder when that is going to take place? Seems like now would be a good time, what with economic development and the current condition of healthcare in the region as the big topics in the area.

As I read through the release (dated Dec 20, 2006), a couple comments stood out:
-“The preface of the values statement is that the Foundation “believes in the ability and necessity of individuals working together to advance the common goal. We work in partnership with people who share our commitment to expanded opportunity and increased well-being for all the region’s residents.” The values that guide the Foundation’s work are equity, excellence, engagement and openness.”
-“The four areas of focus are 1) economic transformation, 2) educational attainment, 3) health and wellness, and 4) community engagement. “The Foundation believes that long-term investments in these areas are among the most beneficial that individuals can make in themselves and that the community can make in its people,””
-“A major task for 2007 will be developing an assessment of the needs, opinions and perceptions of the community to help set priorities for the Foundation. “We must have a definitive understanding of the landscape to help the Board make difficult decisions on allocation of its resources,” said Ashby. “We are aiming high, and our goal is that our work will make a transformational difference to build a brighter future for everyone in the region.””

http://www.danvilleregionalfoundation.org/vision.html

My question is how many different groups are looking at these exact issues, and how much collaboration will there be between them? We have the Foundation doing its assessment, a City Council-convened Citizens Commission to study healthcare in the city, and Citizens for a Better Danville (who has a healthcare subcommittee, by the way). Throw in the Community Foundation of the Dan River Region, the United Way and the Future of the Piedmont Foundation (are they still around now that the IALR is open for bidness?). Bottom line...lots of groups working on the same topics. The big question (some would say the $200 million question) is are they all working in the same direction?

Three weeks...

It's been three weeks since Joint Commission visited us...I still haven't heard whether we are or we aren't....how about you?

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Take a break...

Ran across this interesting read....it has nothing to do with Lifepoint or The Deal.

...or, then again, does it?

http://www.execupundit.com/2007/02/note-from-boss-to-employees-what-some.html