System Hospital News: February 2019

Atrium Medical Center

Atrium Medical Center’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day program focused on local youth. In partnership with 3R Development, Atrium held activities open to the public and hospital employees, including musical and dance performances by area students, a display of artwork created by local students, and a youth oratorical competition.

Atrium and Madison Local Schools signed a naming rights contract to name the athletic field house and surrounding sporting areas the Atrium Medical Center Sports Complex. Atrium will donate $300,000 to Madison Local Schools sports programs as well as supply the school with an athletic trainer for the next 15 years. 

Atrium participated in a regional emergency preparedness drill, practicing its response to evacuate patients to other Cincinnati hospitals. Atrium successfully evacuated all 147 patients that day, including finding a receiving hospital and securing transportation. Atrium was only able to transfer to southern hospitals, which ruled out other Premier Health facilities, as part of the simulation drill with the Health Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati. Atrium completed the drill in 77 minutes – 13 minutes less than the 90 minutes allowed. 

The City of Middletown’s series of Heroin Summit meetings reconvened at Atrium for the 15th session. City government, police and fire, community, and hospital leaders met January 28 to discuss ongoing efforts to tackle the heroin and opioid crisis. Heroin overdoses in the city have declined in the past year, and leaders think that’s for a variety of reasons, including efforts such as the Middletown Heroin Response Team, which works with Atrium’s Emergency Trauma Center to identify overdose patients who visit the emergency department for follow up, if the patient is willing to be contacted.

Atrium will participate in a new workforce development program with several Warren County high schools through United Way of Warren County. The program engages students in Lebanon, Kings, Franklin, Waynesville, and Little Miami school districts to explore potential career pathways at the hospital. The students will take tours of Atrium and hear from hospital leaders in some of the most in-demand job areas.

Cameron McGregor, vice president of  business development for Atrium and Upper Valley Medical Center, was inducted as a new board member to the Chamber of Commerce Serving Middletown, Monroe, and Trenton during the group’s annual meeting. The chamber also recognized Tammy Laine, vice president of business development for Miami Valley Hospital, at the event for her service on its board of directors from 2014 to 2018.

Miami Valley Hospital

Emergency and trauma center physicians recognized exceptional staff members from Miami Valley Hospital, Miami Valley Hospital South, Miami Valley Hospital North, Austin Boulevard Emergency Center, and the Jamestown Emergency Center at the annual Jana Matthews Awards of Excellence in January. Jana Matthews was a dedicated MVH volunteer, and the first volunteer in the emergency and trauma center. In Jana’s honor, staff members of the emergency and trauma center are recognized each year for their outstanding service. These awards are made possible through an endowment established by Jana’s husband, Jack. 

Miami Valley Hospital South received approval to open a Level 1 cardiac catherization lab. The goal is to be ready to open in March. On January 14, Miami Valley Hospital North opened its diagnostic cardiac catherization lab. It will operate Monday through Friday from 7:00 am to 5:30 pm.

Becker’s Hospital Review named Miami Valley Hospital on its latest list of 100 Hospitals and Health Systems with Great Orthopedic Programs. Miami Valley Hospital is the only Dayton-area hospital to be acknowledged. Hospitals featured on Becker’s list of great orthopedic programs have earned recognition for quality of care and patient satisfaction for orthopedic and spine surgery.

The Premier Health Organ Donation Council and Miami Valley Hospital Foundation unveiled the new digital Wall of Heroes display in the southeast addition tower. The Wall of Heroes recognizes patients across Premier Health who gave the ultimate gift of life through organ, eye, and/or tissue donation.  Historically, the display only recognized heroes for one year; the new electronic format allows for interactive review of all heroes, as well as different aspects of donation. Additional donations by Life Connection of Ohio, Community Tissue Services, and Lions Eye Bank of West Central Ohio helped make this enhancement possible.

Several new and existing programs benefitting patients and the greater community began in January thanks to donor contributions to the Miami Valley Hospital Foundation. New programs include a non-pharmacological, enhanced cold therapy system of pain control for post-operative spine and orthopedic patients, and an ultraviolet sterilization system for improved disinfection of patient rooms. Existing programs that received continued funding include the sepsis program manager position and the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program; and Palliative Care coverage (provided by Innovative Care Solutions) has been extended to weekends. Funded programs include Healthy Heroes, which offers strength and endurance training to assist firefighters and EMS personnel. Funds also went toward the creation of a spiritual care director for Premier Health. This position will coordinate and increase awareness of chaplain services at Premier Health hospitals and help ensure that spiritual care is available to support patients, families, staff, and the community.

Miami Valley Hospital South received renewed Acute Stroke Ready Hospital Certification from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.  

Upper Valley Medical Center

The Upper Valley Medical Center Foundation welcomed a new president and board chair in January. Duanna Osting was named president, succeeding Kathleen Scarbrough, who retired last year. Duanna, a Miami County native and graduate of Wright State University, has served as chief development officer for Daybreak Dayton for the past 10 years. Craig Bundschuh of Covington is the new UVMC Foundation board chair, succeeding Michael Gutmann of Piqua. Craig has been associated with the foundation for more than 20 years. He retired from the UVMC Board of Directors in December after serving on that board for 20 years, most recently as chair in 2017 and 2018.

UVMC in January led the Premier Health system in quality review scorecard success by meeting or exceeding quality and safety goals in seven of the eight domains in December and five of the eight domains for year-end 2018. In addition, UVMC ended 2018 at top decile for readmissions with an index score of 8.0 – a significant improvement over a year-end index score of 1.17 in 2017. 

A winter Appreciation Day with pizza for all staff was hosted Jan. 11 to thank employees for their hard work and especially their extra effort in handling the extremely high census days at the hospital in early January. In other staff appreciation, the Emergency Department was recognized with Department of the Quarter honors at UVMC for the winter quarter.  

UVMC hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day program in the hospital cafeteria conference rooms on Jan. 21 that was open to the community and attended by approximately 90 individuals. The event featured guest speaker John Scott II, senior pastor at True Vine Church in Piqua, who presented an inspiring message centered around the Premier Health MLK theme of Passing the Torch: The Dream Continues. Pastor Scott challenged attendees to make the dream of peace and brotherhood a reality in society today with genuine compassion toward all, regardless of differences in race, gender, age, or socioeconomic status. 

Back to the February 2019 issue of Premier Pulse