Samaritan financial outlook promising

MOSES LAKE — The year-end picture of Samaritan Healthcare operation is pretty good, according to a report given to commissioners at the board’s last meeting.

The improvement process involves a set of benchmarks, with progress (or lack of progress) measured on a chart, green for progress, yellow for areas where progress is slower, red for places that need attention.

At the end of 2016, “we have a lot of green,” said chief executive officer Teresa Sullivan. Board members confined their questions to the areas that needed attention.

The hospital didn’t quite hit its patient safety target but got close, Sullivan said. “It is impressive, the work that has been done this year (2016).”

The targeted areas included patient falls, cases where a patient fell and was hurt, even minor injuries. The others were bedsores and infections after surgery. “We made quite a bit of progress,” said chief operating officer Becky DeMers. “We were so close to hitting our target.”

The benchmark measures 12 months; hospital officials changed some procedures around mid-2016, and the full impact of those have yet to show up in the statistics, she said.

The hospital started a procedure to send staff members to check on patients every hour, a procedure called hourly rounding. “It took a while for us to really get going,” she said, “but once we got some traction we’ve seen some steady improvement.”

“You’re not seeing the same employees responsible for falls all the time?” asked board member Alan White.

“No,” DeMers said. “We’re seeing some themes.”

Beds are equipped with an alarm that sounds when people try to get up, she said, and sometimes those are turned off. It’s mostly in cases where the patient is awake and alert, and would ask for help. But patients forget, or they think they don’t need help, she said. “Everybody across the nation is struggling with falls.”

To emphasize safety, the hospital is participating in a “Patient Safety Week” scheduled for the week of March 12. Keeping patients from injury or infection is an effort requiring the attention of all employees, she said, something that’s been proven through research.

Commissioner Dale Paris asked about staff turnover, which was higher than the benchmark for January. Human resources director Lisa McDaniel said the hospital had some employees retiring at the end of the year, which showed up in the statistics. Looking at the 12-month average, the hospital is hitting its targets, she said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.