Samaritan CEO candidate meets Moses Lake community
Samaritan CEO candidate Kathy Romano answers questions from community members during a public forum Thursday.
MOSES LAKE - The shape of future medical care, recapturing patients who go out of town, how to make maximum use of space and staffing, and the right balance of recognition and accountability. Those were among the topics discussed when Kathy Romano, the first of two candidates for Samaritan Healthcare chief executive officer, met with community leaders Thursday.
Romano currently is a vice-president at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane and lived in the San Francisco Bay area prior to that, she said. She is interested in the Samaritan job because there's a lot of integration underway in Spokane's medical community, and she's more comfortable in a smaller hospital, she said.
In answer to a question from Kim Garza, Romano said the current pace of health care costs isn't sustainable. In her opinion the focus of health care will shift, from treating patients on a by-visit basis to improving and promoting wellness techniques and managing chronic diseases.
She said that might mean fewer procedures, citing MRIs as an example, and larger intervention programs for patients with chronic diseases. She cited a program started by her employer in California; heart patients transmitted crucial information each day, which allowed quicker intervention by medical professionals and cut down on emergency room visits.
Moses Lake mayor Bill Ecret asked Romano's opinion of the community's most immediate medical need. Romano said she was struck by the amount of health care available, and where patients accessed it. A lot of people were and are leaving town for that care, she said. It's important for the hospital to offer the mix of services that will meet the community's needs, she said, and make the hospital the first choice for those patients.
The right mix of services and staff was a concern for Mike Dosh, the medical services director for the Moses Lake Fire Department. As someone who transports patients, he's had experiences where patients could have been treated in Moses Lake but had to go elsewhere because there wasn't a hospital bed available. But in fact it meant there wasn't staff, especially nurses, available, he said.
He asked if there was a way to alleviate that, find a "magical formula" that makes the right staff mix more likely. Romano said that hospital stays are getting shorter, which means the hospital has more capacity. Administrators should look at hospital operation and make sure patients are getting treated where they should, she said. One key to that is looking at patient flow, she said. But on the other hand the hospital can't pay for staff for 40 patients when there are only 20 people undergoing treatment, she said.
In answer to a question from Herald publisher Harlan Beagley, Romano said both recognition and accountability, and balancing the two, are keys to good staff management. Most organizations recognize longevity, she said, and should build a way to recognize outstanding work into their management systems.
Improving health care requires that people throughout the system identify the vulnerabilities, she said, and the people who actually do the work know where those vulnerabilities are. Employees are more likely to tell management about them when they know there will a proportionate response, she said. When employees willfully disregards important procedures, management has to make sure it deals with that, Romano said. But if the response to an honest mistake is out of proportion, communication will disappear, she said.
As medical care changes, hospital services will change with it, she said.
Romano will be followed on Monday by Thomas R. Thompson, the second CEO candidate. More information about Thompson will be available at the forum.
He will meet with the community leader panel and the public at noon.
To see video of Romano's interview, visit www.columbiabasinherald.com.
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