Hospital News - 3rd Quarter 2008

Signs go up!

 

August 21, 2008 - Workers have completed installing the new directional signs in the parking area of Presbyterian Hospital.

 

The signs are part of the expansion project that includes the West Wing's Cancer Treatment Center and additional in-patient facilities.

 

Head Nurse reports for active duty
by Melva Geyer

August 20, 2008 - The past 15 months have been somewhat of a whirlwind for Bambi Pish.

In May of 2007 she was elevated to the position of Assistant Administrator/Chief Nursing Officer of the Hunt Memorial Hospital District serving both Presbyterian Hospitals of Greenville and Commerce.

For her professional efforts, in April of 2008 she was named one of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council’s “Great 100” nurses of 2007, carrying on a long-standing tradition established by nursing professionals at HMHD.

Now, as a member of the United States Naval Reserve, Lt. Pish has been assigned a year-long tour of duty in Germany, treating casualties from the Iraq war as an acute care bedside nurse. That means she will be seeing soldiers with the worst injuries.

“We know, with Bambi's exceptional skills, our wounded will have better care than ever before,” said Administrator Mike Klepin.

Yet Klepin and all the administrative team know that losing a nursing director is a challenge. In fact, the transition process began this week after Klepin earlier announced that Citizens Home Health and Rehabilitation Services Director Debby Clack has agreed to fill Pish's shoes while she is away. Clack, a 19-year employee of HMHD, will work closely over the next two weeks with Pish as she prepares to depart. Helping cover for Clack in her regular duties will be Rebecca Harris, a registered nurse in Home Health.

Pish will be stationed at Lanstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American hospital outside the United States and 10 minutes from Ramstein Air Base, the American Air Force headquarters in Europe. She will be serving as a bedside nurse, which she says she is looking forward to doing.

Pish says she joined the reserves five years ago “out of a sense of patriotism,” and has served several “short term” tours.

“I knew it was coming,” she said of the latest call-up, adding her family has been very supportive, although anxious. Her husband, Michael, sons Adam and Andrew and daughter Audrey will remain at home, though visiting Germany is not out of the question.

She says that being separated from them for such a long period of time will be difficult, especially since she will not be able to come home for the holidays.

Pish went to work at HMHD in August of 2001 as a part-time registered nurse in the intensive care unit and has since served in various capacities.

These include Medical/Surgical/ Transitional Care Unit Director and Director of Nurses at Presbyterian Hospital of Commerce. In August of 2005, she accepted the additional responsibility of interim Chief Nursing Officer.

In 1998, Pish earned her bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University-College Station, where she also earned a Masters of Nursing Administration degree from there in 2000. The same year, she received a post-master’s certificate in healthcare administration.

Geyer is Marketing Communications Coordinator of Hunt Memorial Hospital District.

 

Back to school tips
by Dr. David Fry

August 20, 2008 - It’s that time of year again when we send our precious five year olds off to school. Are they ready?

What is “school readiness?” Every state sets an arbitrary date by which a child has to reach his or her fifth birthday before they are considered “ready.” Despite that definition of being ready, the questions come up repeatedly — “Should I hold him back because he has a summer birthday?” or “Should he repeat kindergarten because the teacher thought he was just too immature for first grade?”

A task force of educators studied the issue of school readiness in the early 1990’s. Screening tests and other definitions of readiness were reviewed, and their conclusion was that a child was ready for school when the child “was ready to participate in formal schooling.”

This basically meant that the child had the physical, emotional, social and language skills that would allow him or her to fully participate in school. Note that waiting a year so that he will be bigger and better able to compete against peers in high school athletics was not listed as a criterion for being ready for school!

What if your child isn’t socially or emotionally ready for school? Is holding them back a year a good strategy? My answer to that question is always to inquire back — what will be different in a year? Studies have shown that the youngest children in the kindergarten class score 7-8 percentile points lower than their older peers on academic testing — but by third grade, that difference is totally erased.

Children placed in transitional programs or held back in kindergarten don’t show any overall improvement in academic scores, and in fact often have persistent social and emotional problems that were unchanged by that approach.

The approach that has been shown to be most successful is to enroll the child in kindergarten and then have focused programs to help them in the areas where they are struggling.

This approach takes intervention early in their education to be successful — the parent teacher conference in April or May is too late. Schools are sometimes reluctant to make an individual educational plan for a child as they have limited time, financial resources and are sometimes penalized by the State (including by the State of Texas) for identifying too many children as needing assistance. You have to be your child’s advocate and work with the teacher to identify his or her needs and then get the help that is needed.

Why is school retention such a concern? The drop-out rate overall in the United States is about 10 percent, but in children that have been held back or retained at any time in their education, the rate jumps up to 22 percent, and in those two years behind their peers, the drop-out rate is 39 percent.

The rate is even higher if held back in later years (after kindergarten or fifth grade). The drop-out rates in Texas, unfortunately, are even higher than the national averages. Adults who don’t finish high school are 50 percent more likely to smoke and have a 100 percent (that’s double!) age-adjusted death rate.

There are a lot of things you can do to avoid these dismal outcomes. Read to your child starting at an early age. Studies have shown that even reading 15 minutes a day starting at two years old or before will improve interest in reading and in overall communication between parent and child.

Turn off the TV and encourage independent play and physical activity. Participating in pre-kindergarten programs has a benefit in helping identify problems but has no long term improvement in academic success. Parent involvement is far more helpful in the long run. Be sure your child gets plenty of sleep and eats a good balanced diet.

Sending your child off to school is always a challenging time. My 5-year-old grandson is starting school this month and he’s excited. School is his window to a big wonderful world, and with help from teachers, parents (and grandparents), I’m confident he’ll be successful.

That confidence should be in all parents of new students, and with a little work, patience, advocacy and motivation, it should be rewarded with success.

Dr. Fry is a Greenville pediatrician whose office is located in the Professional Building at Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville.

 

Scholarship winner announced

August 20, 2008 - Rebekah J. McGuire, 18, of Quinlan, center, has been awarded the Dr. R. Irvin Morgan Scholarship by the Hunt Memorial Hospital District Charitable Health Foundation.

Underwritten by the medical staff at Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville, the competitive college scholarship is awarded annually to a graduating high school senior who plans to pursue a healthcare career. It honors the late Dr. Morgan who served the hospital as a pathologist for many years prior to his death.

Ms. McGuire is flanked by David Fry, M.D., and Moushira Ebrahim, M.D., who served on the selection committee.

A 2008 graduate of Quinlan Ford High School, Ms. McGuire will enroll as a biology major in pre-med at Texas A&M University-Commerce later this month. She is the daughter of Juan and Martha Baldenegro of Quinlan.

 

HMHD at “Tools for School”

 

August 10, 2008 - Richard Carter, Chief Executive Officer for the Hunt Memorial Hospital District, was on hand to help some of the 1,200 students who visited the HMHD booth at the annual “Tools for School” event at Ridgecrest Baptist Church on August 9.

The Hospital District distributed safety information, markers, crayons, coloring books, and play dough donated by partner McKesson Industries (formerly PerSe).

HMHD also gave away 20 bicycle helmets in the prize drawings.

 

 

Podiatry Residency Program at HMHD
by Richard Carter

August 11, 2008 - Recent visitors to Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville may have noticed a group of young men and women dressed in white coats moving around in the halls or dining together in our new cafeteria.

These people are our Podiatry Residency Program doctors from which we now have three graduates. Dr. Mitch Williams of Fort Worth is the latest to graduate, heading to Grand Junction, Colo., to begin his medical career.

 

In our quest to grow as a leading medical facility in North Texas, we consider the residency program as a “feather in our cap” as it brings top students from around the nation to PHG. Here they have the opportunity to study under an internationally known and respected podiatrist, Dr. Stephen Brancheau.

Earlier this summer the HMHD board of directors approved funding for the 2008-2009 program year at a cost of approximately $188,000.

 

The funding for the program comes primarily through Medicare reimbursement for residency programs, called GME, and an additional payment added to each Medicare inpatient admission called IME. Other funding comes from grants and fundraising, to balance the budget.

Personally, I consider this expenditure an investment rather than a cost, both in terms of improved medical care, preparing our physician providers for the future and the invigoration the students add to the organization. Add to those benefits, the prestige that goes with such a program not often found in hospitals this size, and you can see we have a winning combination.

Following the graduation of Dr. Williams, Dr. David Northcutt from Greentown, Indiana, becomes our senior resident who will be the senior resident through next summer. Dr. Catherine Casteel of Palestine (Texas) is beginning her second year as a resident, and Dr. Joe Morgan of Valley Mills has joined the team, rounding out the program.

Hunt County has already reaped one major benefit from the program when the program second graduate, Dr. Lesley Richey-Smith, decided to stay in Greenville and open her practice with Dr. Brancheau and Dr. David Minchey.

The residents are based in Greenville, but travel to numerous surgery centers in North Texas to participate in foot and ankle surgeries that will provide the best learning opportunities. They are involved in approximately 3,000 procedures a year and make about 25 to 35 emergency room visits a month here in Greenville.

As Dr. Brancheau points out, it is important that the residents come out of the programs as well rounded practitioners. That’s one of the reasons for the extensive rotations that are scheduled, all the way from internal medicine to wound care, pathology, anesthesiology and psychiatry.

It’s exciting to watch the residents grow, not just academically and clinically, but also in maturity. This is so important to their patients and to the healthcare facilities with which they will become associated. We wish all of them well as they complete their long road of medical training.

Carter is chief operating officer for the Hunt Memorial Hospital District.

 

Hospital receives high marks for newborn screening

July 31, 2008 - Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville has been recognized by the State of Texas as one of the best in screening newborn babies for hearing loss.

“Our Women’s Center earned top marks with its recent certification as a ‘Distinguished Newborn Hearing Screening Program,’ the highest rating possible for a birthing hospital in Texas,” said Michael Klepin, administrator of Presbyterian Hospitals of Greenville and Commerce.

The goal of the program is to ensure that newborns who have hearing loss quickly get into services to develop their speech, language and learning, said Registered Nurse Kim Parks, coordinator of the PHG program and a shift manager on the maternity floor.

All babies are screened within 12-48 hours after being born, Parks said.

“We’re proud to be able to offer this service to the families in our community,” said Hunt Memorial Hospital District CEO Richard Carter. “We’re also proud of Kim and the trained staff who make the program possible,” Carter said.

Texas hospitals across the state screen newborns for hearing loss as part of a statewide public health initiative that is preventing many infants from suffering developmental delays associated with undetected hearing loss which occurs in about one baby in 1,000.

PHG earned this recognition by ensuring families that their newborns receive top-quality services during their hospital birth admission. The Texas Department of State Health Services monitors hospital-based hearing screening programs to ensure specific quality benchmarks are met.

To be certified, hospitals must screen newborns for hearing loss, refer those who need follow-up testing to audiologists, and inform parents and family doctors of hearing screening results. Certified hospitals have demonstrated a commitment to ensuring that those babies born with hearing loss are detected early and channeled to the best resources to get medical and educational attention.

The Texas newborn hearing screening program is one of the largest of its kind in the world and has continually ranked as one of the best in country since being implemented in 2001 by the Texas Legislature. Nearly 400,000 babies in Texas are screened annually because of this program. In 2007 some 1,200 babies born at PHG were screened.

 

Presbyterian Greenville 3rd floor renovation

July 31, 2008 - Harry Gibson, right, Physician Relations Coordinator for the Hunt Memorial Hospital District, checks out the refurbished nurses’ station on the third floor of the old tower at Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville as he visits with Anghalee Miller, left, a licensed vocational nurse, and Myra Farmer, third floor shift manager.

Following the opening of the new West Wing, the existing third floor was closed down and renovated throughout.

Work is also being done on the old fourth floor and on the seventh floor where the new acute rehabilitation center will open in the fall.

 

HMHD outlines new smoking policy

July 31, 2008 - While the Hunt Memorial Hospital District officially goes tobacco free on January 1, 2009, advanced strategies are being planned to assist a smooth process.

In June, the HMHD board of directors approved the tobacco-free policy that would affect all properties including those in Greenville, Commerce and Quinlan, and will apply the new minor care clinic scheduled to open later this summer in south Greenville.

While smoking is already prohibited within HMHD buildings and allowed only in designated areas on campus, the new policy will include any surrounding and adjacent grounds as well as parking areas at these sites as off-limits for smoking.

“We are striving to provide the healthiest environment possible for our associates, physicians, patients, their families and visitors,” said Richard Carter, chief executive officer of HMHD.

“It seems somewhat insincere to claim we care about health and wellness while we allow people to smoke cigarettes or use other tobacco products,” said Carter.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of all Americans who smoke will die from smoking-related diseases. In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that “secondhand smoke contains numerous human carcinogens for which there is no safe level of exposure.”

To help facilitate the ban, starting in August, the hospitals will provide a smoking cessation program for all employees who use tobacco.

“We know it isn’t easy to give up smoking or using other tobacco products, but we will try to make it easy as possible for our employees,” says Carter. “Those who choose not to quit will have to leave the campus to have a cigarette.”

The same will be required of visitors and patients.

“We will also provide all new hires a copy of the tobacco free campus policy upon employment so there will be no surprises,” said Stacey Lane, Human Resources director.

An internal committee, part of HMHD’s Customer Service Initiative, is also taking an active roll in helping ease into the program. Taking advantage of The American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout on Nov. 20, the committee is looking at possible events that would lend support to those trying to kick the habit, said Debbie Clack, chairman.

HMHD is not alone in implementing the tobacco-free policy. Hospitals around the country have established smoke free environments for the past decade, including several throughout Texas – Austin State Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital, Texas Medical Center, North Texas Medical Center, Baylor, Presbyterian, Harris Methodist and Hopkins County, just to name a few.

For more information contact 903-408-1063.

 

Decontamination tent tested

July 11, 2008 - Hunt Memorial Hospital District’s new hazardous materials decontamination tent was put to its first use Friday morning as a week-long HAZMAT training session came to an end.

The tent can be inflated in less than a minute to “clean” victims who have been exposed to hazardous chemicals and smoke.

 

 

 

At left, Chad Gordon, ER Patient Care Associate from Commerce, emerges from the HAZMAT tent where he is greeted by Stuart Prichard and Bonnie Stewart.

 

 

Hazmat training underway
by Chad Blackshear
Herald-Banner Staff

July 9, 2008 - Don’t be alarmed by the tents around Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville on Friday. It’s only a test.

Employees from Hunt Memorial Hospital District (HMHD), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and Primary Care Associates (PCA) are undergoing Hazmat training this week at the HMHD Greenville campus.

The Hazmat program at HMHD was started in 1994 according to HMHD Microbiology Supervisor and Hazmat Coordinator Bonnie Stewart.

“We saw the need for this before the September 11 attacks,” Stewart said.

There are 16 individuals enrolled in the current training class that is being instructed by Eddie Cook of the Greenbelt Environmental Group. Funding for the project is regulated through the North-Central Texas Trauma regional Advisory Council.

The program is intended to provide area citizens treatment in situations ranging from excessive exposure to lime up to a bioterror attack.

“Hazardous materials and bioterrorism materials are the same, and we respond to them the same way,” Cook explained.

	Chris Diaz, right, a patient care associate at Presbyterian Hospital of Commerce, demonstrates yet another life-saving use for duct tape as he secures the oxygen mask to Mark Wright, emergency room nurse at Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville. The hazardous materials (HAZMAT) training was taking place at the Greenville hospital.
Eddie Cook, a Greenbelt Hazardous Materials training instructor, shows members of the HAZMAT team at Presbyterian Hospitals of Greenville and Commerce how to properly attach an oxygen mask to J.J. Lewis during a training session Tuesday morning in Greenville. The training will continue through the week, culminating with a scheduled on-site demonstration of decontamination protocol on Friday.
	Elsie McKee, Michelle Lowe and Jerrie Phillips make certain Michelle’s oxygen mask is adjusted properly.
Michael Sanchez, assistant director of Emergency Medical Services, helps his new “boss,” Andrew Threndyle, suit up for hazardous material duty during the week-long HAZMAT training at PHG. Threndyle joined the HMHD team this spring as EMS director, replacing Patrick Schooler.
	Michael Sanchez is out of his HAZMAT suit, which seems to have conformed to his body. People in the suits get extremely warm, even inside an air-conditioned building.

There will be a live drill on Friday morning, with decontamination tents set up behind the hospital campus. The location of the drill is accessible from Ridgecrest Road.

According to Stewart, this would be the central decontamination area in the event of a major disaster.

“As traffic comes in, we can stop them and make sure they don’t come in contact with people that have been exposed to hazardous materials,” Stewart said. “When dealing with hazardous materials, you have to treat the exposure first, then treat them for their other injuries.”

Stewart emphasized that the hospital is prepared to deal with any catastrophe and that there is a decontamination shower in the hospital and hazmat certified people on hand 24 hours a day. Upon completion of the 40 hour course, the individuals will become certified technicians, and will be able to enter contaminated areas.

Reprinted with permission from the Herald-Banner

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