Entries Tagged as From The Desk
The Time is Now
The undeniable need for advanced trauma emergency services in Solano County hit home here at NorthBay recently when a typical staff meeting turned unusual.
To build Solano County’s first trauma center the program’s architects must keep track of hundreds of many moving parts—policies, procedures, protocols, staff training, physicians, nurses, new staff recruitment, equipment needs, regulatory hurdles and the massive data collection that is required of a hospital that takes on this responsibility.
There’s a lot of communication and synchronization. That’s why staff members involved in developing our trauma center meet twice a month at NorthBay Medical Center. Of course, this group is just the tip of an iceberg comprising well over 100 folks who have made this project come to fruition.
During one of these meetings, the hospital’s public address system broadcast a "code trauma." A patient had arrived unexpectedly in the Emergency Department. When that code is called, the trauma team springs into action.
At first, I figured it was another drill in preparation of achieving a Level III trauma center designation. But NorthBay’s chief nursing officer, who was in the meeting, assured me that it was the real thing. Our trauma medical director, a surgeon, swiftly departed and rushed to the ER.
Heading back to my office, walking along a long corridor that approaches the emergency services area, there was a great flurry of activity. NorthBay’s trauma team came flying out of the ER on its way to surgery with the patient on a gurney.
Our trauma program director, a registered nurse, was helping with the patient. Another NorthBay staff person was atop the gurney compressing the patient’s chest. Other staff scurried along side and ahead of the tempest. NorthBay security personnel cleared the path. NorthBay was doing its best for this patient.
It was dramatic, particularly for people in an adjacent waiting area. What they saw looked somewhat like what you see in a television show, except this was reality, not TV. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were concerned by what they had just seen. It was a matter of life or death – right there, in person, in real time.
While local hospitals treat trauma patients all the time, NorthBay Medical Center is now the first Level III trauma center in Solano County. And we hope to eventually move up to a Level II designation. Until then, many patients must be put on helicopters and flown out of this county for care.
Trauma services have been missing for too long in our community. In this issue of Wellspring, we will tell you how we intend to fulfill our mission of providing advanced medicine, close to home. And it will include more advanced trauma services.
Staying Grounded, Staying on Course
Amid the clamor emanating from political circles (or is it political circus?) these days, it’s easy for healthcare leaders to become perplexed by Washington, D.C., and Sacramento.
We can easily become preoccupied with state budget cuts, federal deficit reductions and the haggling over the national debt. We can fret over what politicians will decide, and what it will mean to hospitals, physicians, and ultimately, the patients we treat.
There are important, and perhaps momentous, decisions being made by those who hold the purse strings of programs that many of our friends and family rely on to provide the care they need. In a nation and a state so fiscally challenged to stay afloat, this is an era in which we are being asked to do more with less.
A daunting task, indeed.
How we will succeed in such an undertaking makes for sleepless nights for healthcare administrators. But we will prevail, as we have done in the past when economic times took a turn for the worse. So it’s important for us on the front lines to stay grounded and stay focused on the job at hand.
We have the sacred honor of providing healthcare. You put into our hands your life, and your children’s lives. That is an awesome responsibility never neglected by any of us at NorthBay Healthcare. We continuously look for ways to improve the care we deliver. And now, we must do it with fewer resources than before.
We must be innovative. In this issue you will learn how we are creating a healthcare continuum that is accountable to furnish the best results. That means connecting primary care with hospital care and home care, leveraging our investment in electronic health records to ensure every provider knows your medical history.
The results we are seeing include a decline in hospital-acquired conditions, such as infections, and a drop in preventable readmissions. As we ramp up our patient education and our community preventive medicine initiatives, we will keep more healthy people from becoming patients in our emergency rooms and hospitals.
That will create a more healthy community supported by a durable healthcare system that enables all to, as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock would say, live long and prosper.
Offering a Reason to Believe
Sometimes, hope can be the best medicine we can prescribe. So we do just that.
One day, my brother called to say his 78-year-old friend had been diagnosed with a form of leukemia and was told he had two months to live. This man had a well-known health plan and a physician who said because of his age, because he was a diabetic and had a grave prognosis, no further treatment would be provided.
My brother’s friend frantically sought a second opinion from a cancer specialist not connected to his health plan. He was trapped in a dilemma too common in America today. He was a victim of a cost-benefit analysis, which concluded that expending additional resources on him was futile and a waste.
Contrast his case and that of my mother, who learned her cancer had spread and there was little that could be done. When my mom asked how long she would live, she was told three to six months. Fortunately, though, she escaped the cold, financial scrutiny my brother’s friend endured.
When her oncologist saw the impact the diagnosis had on her and my family, she was asked if she were willing to try two rounds of chemotherapy. Medicare would pay for it. The specialist made it clear treatment would be primarily palliative, not a cure. It probably would only slightly extend her life.
That bit of hope was all my mother wanted, so she underwent chemotherapy. She died just six months after her diagnosis, but she had hope for much of that time. She also had a sense she was fighting a battle she needed to fight.
This issue of Wellspring is all about hope. And it begins with what we call a “Giant Dose of Hope,” featuring a Hall of Fame baseball legend we were able to help at NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield.
Willie McCovey came to Dr. Charles Sonu, who heads our spine program, after hearing of his work with other athletes. His condition was worsening; Willie simply wanted hope he could walk again and make it back to spring training as the Giants begin the defense of their championship.
Not only did he get hope, but he was able to walk onto the field and throw out the first pitch of the World Series. And, of course, he was able to ride the streets of San Francisco and make his way to the podium when the Giants celebrated their first World Series victory since coming to the City by the Bay. Our premier spine surgeon has given Willie hope to lead a more independent life in retirement.
We add to his several other stories of hope.
There’s Madeleiene Burroughs of Fairfield, whose hope in her battle against cancer is to live each day to its fullest, regardless of the odds.
Holly McKee’s wish is for her baby to live a healthy and normal life.
Our stories of hope, we hope, are an inspiration to others who face the prospect of serious medical conditions and who need a reason to persevere.
We can offer compassionate care, advanced medicine, close to home. But we also can add a giant dose of hope.
Doing What Others Can't
What do we mean when we say, "Advanced medicine, close to home"? Well, how about a robot zipping down our hospital hallway en route to check on a stroke patient? Right out of Star Wars.
Or what about creating 3-D and 4-D (moving images) of the heart taken by a camera-like probe that travels down a patient's esophagus? Really, it's not too hard to swallow.
How about a self-expanding metal device made of space-age nitinol that can be fitted during surgery to defuse the danger of an abdominal aortic aneurysm?
The list of advanced medical procedures, now standard tools for healing offered at NorthBay Healthcare, goes on and on. And it continues to grow. In this issue of Wellspring, you will learn about 21st century—and beyond—medicine practiced every day, close to home.
We believe our family, friends and neighbors shouldn't be shipped far from home to receive the best and latest lifesaving medical technology. That's why we didn't stop after creating the county's first neonatal intensive care unit for premature babies, or its first accredited cancer center, or the only heart and vascular center featuring surgery that occurs while the heart is beating.
Robots pave the way for our accreditation as a primary stroke center. Before we began this endeavor, Solano County was one of the worst places to have a stroke because patients had to be rushed to hospitals in other counties. Now, our robots connect us to the region's foremost center for such care, the Mercy Neurological Institute. Read on to find out how our partnership will create one more lifesaving medical service for local patients.
As I said, we aren't done yet. As our stroke program develops, we move ahead to create trauma care services, something also missing in this county.
Our initial trauma center will be established at NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield. When we complete our expansion work at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, the trauma center will move there, and will be continually upgraded to advanced trauma care. Accident victims and those with traumatic injuries will then be rushed to a local hospital, not put on a helicopter and transported to Sacramento or Walnut Creek, losing critical time to begin advanced lifesaving procedures.
After that, we'll continue to bring more cutting-edge medicine to Solano County that others cannot. There is much more to do.
Gary Passama
President and Chief Executive Officer
Into the Blogosphere
Even those of us who own it, live it and breathe it every day do not always comprehend the vast complexity of healthcare. So why expect our patients and the general public to understand what we do and why we do it the way we do it? Yes, there's the clinical side, which takes a medical degree. But there's also the public policy of healthcare, which I'm not sure anyone understands---especially politicians. We have made healthcare the most regulated, inspected, monitored and manipulated industry in America.
Our Commitment, Cross Our Hearts
The advent of Solano County's first center for heart surgery and specialized vascular treatments simply underlines NorthBay Healthcare's mission and promise to bring advanced medicine close to home.
In this issue of Wellspring, we present a comprehensive look at the skilled professionals who work in state-of-the-art facilities to deliver life-saving heart and vascular medicine.
These Are Curious Times
The campaign for "reform"—however you define change in health care—grinds along in state and federal capitals. All the while, we here on the front lines do what we have always done: focus on our patients and the best possible care we can provide them.
From the Desk of the CEO
Any notion health care and hospitals somehow are “recession proof” – immune from today’s economic malaise – has been proved a myth once again.
