Samaritan commissioners hire consultant

Firm will review hospital surgical program

MOSES LAKE — Samaritan Healthcare officials will hire an outside consultant to examine Samaritan Hospital’s perioperative, surgical and anesthesia departments. Samaritan commissioners at the regular meeting Tuesday voted to hire the firm OR Dx + Rx, based in Wellesley, Mass.

The company’s job will be to examine the hospital’s surgical operations, from the time patients are admitted until they are discharged. Gretchen Youngren, executive director of development and communications, said consultants are expected to start talking to surgical staff in February and visiting the hospital in March.

No contract price has been announced.

According to the company’s website, its “mission is to improve the quality, safety and patient experience of the perioperative process” at hospitals and other medical facilities. The company will make some recommendations on ways to improve surgical services.

The decision to hire a consultant follows extensive discussions between hospital officials, surgeons and the hospital’s anesthesia department. As a result of those discussions hospital officials decided to hire a consultant, Youngren said.

The discussions were set up after a group of surgeons attended the Dec. 17 commission meeting to express concerns over the hospital’s nurse-anesthetist team, although they declined to be specific about their concerns.