Second of two parts
When Coosa Valley Medical Center broke away from Baptist Health System in 2004 to build a new inpatient facility, the hospital brought to reality a longtime goal in serving Sylacauga and surrounding communities.
“What is a priority for a tertiary medical center in Birmingham, Atlanta or Chicago might not necessarily be a priority for a hospital in Sylacauga, Cullman or Decatur,” Coosa Valley CEO Glenn Sisk said. “Being able to develop that list of priorities at the system level becomes complicated at times, but being able to develop that list of priorities at the local level is not as complicated.”
While priorities may be more clear, a rural hospital faces it’s share of hurdles. “There are challenges, no question,” Sisk said. “Our access to capital is challenging for us. Our costs of goods and services are sometimes higher than they might be if we were part of a larger healthcare system. But we believe that hospitals can, in the right circumstances, make it on their own.”
Sisk and his staff overcame a number of challenges in order to complete their new inpatient facility, the West Wing, which opened in 2007.
A replacement for the original inpatient building, which opened in 1945, had been a top priority for Coosa Valley for some time. The new 125,000-square-foot West Wing includes 88 private rooms, medical-surgical areas, an intensive care unit, the Women’s Center, a materials management purchasing area, an energy center and a chapel.
“Also in the facility is our new imaging center, which we believe to be world-class in terms of rural healthcare delivery,” Sisk said. “We have the latest digital mammography technology as well as a 64-slice CT. We’re also in the process of transitioning to PACS.”
During the move to the new building, Coosa Valley converted to electronic medical records. “Now when you walk through the halls of our organization, you see nursing staff carrying laptop computers on a mobile-care stand as opposed to paper-pencil charts,” Sisk said. “We think that creates a more efficient environment as well as a safer environment from a patient care delivery standpoint, to reduce human error and that kind of thing.”
The Hickory Street Café in the West Wing is popular among area residents as well as the Medical Center staff.
“As a point of emphasis, we don’t call it a cafeteria anymore. We call it a café,” Sisk said. “We’ve been really pleased with the growth of that. As a matter of fact, at last look we were some 91 percent up once we moved in terms of our revenue in the café, and let me tell you what we did.
“We believe, philosophically, that to the extent that you can get people to come to the hospital when they’re not ill, it’s a good thing. Meaning most of the time when you come to a hospital, either you’re feeling poorly, which creates a certain level of stress, or a family member or friend might be the one there, which also contributes to your anxiety. So we have worked hard through the development of the café, and the space itself is really fantastic.”
He added, “It has become a dining destination in Sylacauga. Sunday afternoon lunches after church are kind of hard to get into at times. We’re also doing a lot of catering to community groups such as the Rotary Club, Civitan Club, and Kiwanis Club.”
The 650 team members at Coosa Valley also cater to patients through a “Guest Excellence Creed,” vowing to treat patients “as though they were my family or friends.”
“Our patient satisfaction scores ranked at 93 percent this past year, which was the highest in our recorded history,” Sisk said.
“We’re not going to do things that we can’t do well. If we can’t deliver good clinical outcomes because we might do five of something in a year versus a hospital in Birmingham that might do 5,000 of something in a year, we’re not going to be in that business. But when it comes to the things that we deliver, we want to make sure we do so in a manner that is not only demonstrated with good clinical outcomes but is also supported by Guest Excellence.”
The Coosa Valley staff recognizes “we will never be all things to all people,” he said. “There is a need for delivery of medicine at tertiary medical centers. We’re very fortunate to have a number of those in Birmingham that, 45 or 50 miles away, can deliver some of the best healthcare you can find anywhere in the world. But we also believe that delivering healthcare in the local community can be done very effectively. We are proud of the clinical outcomes we continue to enjoy in Sylacauga.”
February 2008
