Hospital Holds Town Hall Meeting, Unveils Building Plan

(A LOOK AT THE NEW AMBULATORY CARE CENTER TO BE CONNECTED TO THE EFFINGHAM MEDICAL CENTER WEST OF THE HOSPITAL ALONG TEMPLE AVENUE)

HSHS St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital of Effingham recently invited area residents to a Community Town Hall meeting held in the hospital Auditorium. Led by Theresa Rutherford, St. Anthony’s President and CEO, the event allowed community members to hear the latest about the hospital’s growth over the past year and to get a sneak peek at the organization’s future plans and goals. It also provided an opportunity for the hospital’s leadership to answer questions and dispel rumors about the organization. 

One of the rumors that Rutherford was quick to dispel was that the hospital had been sold. She shared that this rumor most likely was generated by the fact that the hospital now is referred to as “HSHS St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital,” with “HSHS” standing for “Hospital Sisters Health System,” which St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital has been affiliated with since the 1970s. HSHS was formed by the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis to manage their ever-expanding ministry, which now consists of 14 hospitals and physician practices in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Rutherford explained why the HSHS has been added to St. Anthony’s name, as well as added to all other HSHS hospitals’ names such as HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur and HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield.  “Including HSHS as part of our name provides us with the leverage to be able to negotiate better prices, which we then pass on to our patients throughout the system. Individually, as St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital, we provide care for about 250,000 lives, which is a large number, but not quite as substantial as the lives covered in Illinois and Wisconsin through HSHS many hospitals and medical groups,” she explained. “We have always been part of the HSHS system and we will continue to be, serving our communities in the tradition of our Hospital Sisters, with our Core Values of Respect, Care, Competence and Joy.”

Rutherford touched upon the community programs and outreach that St. Anthony’s provides to the area to help make the community healthier and stronger, highlighting some of the newer programs created by the hospital this past year.  For example, St. Anthony’s launched a School Wellness Program whose purpose is to educate and instill good habits in children to increase their physical activity levels and nutrition. The 10-week program focuses on third grade students and is offered to all grade schools in our primary service area of Effingham and Jasper counties.  So far, 58 third graders completed the program from St. Anthony, Sacred Heart and Sigel St. Michael schools.  The program is now being offered to third-grade students in St. Thomas and Jasper County Schools in Newton.

Another program the hospital recently launched was to assist area high schools in meeting a requirement established by the State of Illinois that all schools offer CPR to high school students.  The hospital recently completed CPR instruction to 293 high school students from Altamont, Dieterich, St. Anthony and Teutopolis along with 20 St. Anthony High School staff members. The hospital is currently working with other area schools to offer this instruction as well.

The hospital also launched a Dental Voucher Program over the past year, in partnership with Catholic Charities and area dentists and oral surgeons.  St. Anthony’s provides funds for the program which allows people with limited financial means to get the dental care they need to avoid future problems. To date, St. Anthony’s has assisted 97 individuals from six different counties get the care they need, totaling over $25,000 in dental services. 

During the Town Hall, Rutherford also shared how St. Anthony’s was recognized for its quality over the past year. She explained, “In recent years, the Federal Government, to keep the cost of providing Medicare down, began determining how much they would pay us for taking care of Medicare patients and then keeping part of it in increasing percentages every year, dependent on the service provided by hospitals. They are effectively saying, ‘If you want this money for the treatment you gave, you need to earn it.’ The categories in which they test us are safety, clinical quality, efficiency, cost-reduction, readmissions, and patient experience, and they decide if we are better than or average compared to other hospitals nationwide,” she said.

“This past year, the colleagues and physicians in our organization did such a great job in all of these categories that they not only paid us the money that they originally said they would pay us for care of Medicare patients, but we actually got extra money back. We actually performed in the top 25 percent of hospitals nationwide in clinical quality and service…right here in Effingham.  That is something to be proud of,” she said.

St. Anthony’s received a number of awards over the past year for their quality. Some of the awards highlighted by Rutherford included:

·         2013 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures by The Joint Commission: This recognition is for excellence in accountability measure performance shown to improve care for certain conditions. The measure sets which we were recognized for included Heart Attack, Heart Failure, Pneumonia and Surgical Care. 

·         2014 HomeCare Elite™: St. Anthony’s Home Care was recognized being in the top 25 percent of agencies nationwide for quality outcomes, process measures, patient experience, quality improvement and consistency, and financial performance 

·         Women and Children’s Care March of Dimes Award: The Women and Children’s Care department was recognized by the March of Dimes, in partnership with the Illinois Perinatal Quality Collaborative (ILPQC) and the Illinois Hospital Association (IHA) for their commitment to improving the quality of care for moms and babies by reducing the number of elective deliveries performed before 39 completed weeks of pregnancy. 

Rutherford also took time to highlight the exceptional colleagues who work at St. Anthony’s.  “We are the largest employer in Effingham.  When you think about it, that’s something to be proud of, but we also need to live up to that expectation to be the employer of choice.”  She shared some of the employment achievements of the past year:

·         St. Anthony’s hired 90 new people from July 1, 2014 through January 14, 2015, including 31 RN’s, nine nurse assistants and technicians, and 50 other clinical and non-clinical new hires. 

·         The hospital is actively recruiting for 75 open positions. Of those positions, 45 are newly created positions, showing the hospital’s growth, such as the expansion of its Home Care and Hospice services into 22 counties in southern Illinois.

·         As part of its goal to be the employer of choice, St. Anthony’s conducted an assessment of every job in the organization over a number of months, looking at colleagues’ experience and job duties, and compared each position’s wages to local and St. Louis markets.  No one received a reduction in wages. There were 246 who were being paid above the market and so were given no increase, but 450 colleagues received market adjustments to keep the best care in Effingham.  That increases demonstrates a yearly annualized commitment by St. Anthony’s of over $900,000.

A highlight of the event was when Rutherford shared some of the future plans of the organization. Two upcoming projects of the hospital are a rejuvenation of the hospital’s Emergency department and the development of an ambulatory care center.  The Emergency department renovation is in the early preparation stages with plans to expand and remodel the hospital’s ER within the footprint of the hospital’s current building. Rutherford shared, “This project is important to maintain and protect the privacy of the patients we care for by providing them with private rooms instead of semi-private, as well as increasing the line of sight for all ER rooms for our staff so that can monitor all patients safely.  Our ER volume is also growing so we want to improve the flow of patients into and out of the ER so they can return home quicker or be admitted to a hospital room to receive additional care.” The remodeling project is anticipated to begin in stages in calendar year 2016.  It will be a commitment in excess of $4 million for improvements that benefit the colleagues, Medical Staff and community.

The other project that Rutherford unveiled at the Town Hall was a new Ambulatory Care Center (ACC) combined with a medical office building. The purpose of the ACC is to provide patients with an ideal ambulatory (or outpatient) patient experience by moving outpatient services that are best delivered in an easily accessible setting off the main hospital campus.  St. Anthony’s ACC will relocate some hospital outpatient services that are located within blocks of each other to one centralized location for added convenience for area residents.  These services include:  

·         Laboratory Specimen Collection

·         Convenient Care

·         Diagnostic Imaging including  X-ray and CT

·         Open MRI

·         Women’s Wellness Center and Boutique

·         Physician Office Space

The ACC will be connected to the current Effingham Medical Center office building to provide ease of access for physicians and patients alike. The hospital is currently working with the physicians located in the Effingham Medical Center to make plans for renovating that space to connect the look and feel of the two buildings when completed.

St. Anthony’s will approach the State of Illinois for Certificate of Need (CON) approval for the ACC on March 10.  Once approved, plans can move forward with construction planned to begin this year, with anticipated occupancy in January 2016.

Rutherford explained why the hospital wants to build the ACC. “We are looking to move and modernize our health care to the way health care is going. Fewer patients are hospitalized, more and more are being seen in an office or clinic setting, so we always need to be taking steps to meet the needs of our patients and the community.”

Overall, Rutherford said she wanted to assure the community that St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital is a stable financial organization that will be here for another 140 years. “We are stronger than we have ever been, our quality and safety are better than they have even been, our reputation continues to grow as a very cost-effective and caring place to get your health care, with amazing physicians and a very talented team that provides the best care anywhere around.  We are here for the long haul.”

To watch a video of the Community Town Hall in its entirety, search for “St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital Effingham” on YouTube for the hospital’s YouTube Channel or visit the hospital Web site at stanthonyshospital.org.