A Ray of Sunshine – New Digital Mammography

Amidst GRMC’s financial dark clouds, primarily due to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement levels, we’ve been able to find unique ways to bring our patients new technology. Our latest addition is digital mammography made possible through an agreement with Iowa Radiology. This is the radiology group we have been working with for many years, and this collaboration has been really great for GRMC and our patients.

Being a guy I may not relate to the issues that women face with this exam, but I recognize the importance of having a regular mammogram. My mother is a breast cancer survivor. Early detection, an excellent treatment plan, and a great attitude all have made for a wonderful survival story for her thankfully. GRMC’s new digital technology unit—along with the cushions for the equipment—makes for a warmer, more comfortable exam with more refined detection capabilities.

The optimist in me encourages women to be conscious that the sooner a cancer diagnosis is made, the better their outcome will be. Yet for some patients each year, the words “you have cancer” echo in horror as they receive the news. Our compassionate staff offer hope and support to the women who hear those words. Optimism clings to the knowledge that healthcare advances such as digital mammography and breast cancer treatment options are readily available and very successful.

Although no one wants to hear they have breast cancer, early detection does greatly improve the odds for a successful outcome. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer. Our new digital mammography unit is just one more way that we have expanded our services to improve the lives of our patients.

For more information about mammography and the services we offer at GRMC, click here. 

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent GRMC’s positions, strategies, or opinions.

Too Important to Fail

Rural hospital CEO’s like me have a role that our counterparts in larger communities and urban areas rarely have. We usually find ourselves on contact committees for community economic development efforts, meeting with potential business leaders for possible business expansion or relocation. Competition is very high for this kind of development. I have had the good fortune to serve on the Poweshiek Iowa Development, Grinnell Renaissance, and the Waterford Group board of directors over my years here.

So, what does a hospital have to do with economic development? Plenty. Business owners consider many factors when shopping for location. Is there a supply of qualified workers? What is the real estate market? What about quality of life? Are the schools able to provide a good education? What about healthcare? No doubt, high quality and affordable healthcare is key to new business growth in any community. The goal of course is to attract new organizations to locate in our greater Poweshiek community and help grow our economy. Clearly that helps everyone…including Grinnell Regional Medical Center. Besides helping to tell the community’s story and helping to recruit new business to the area, I also have the opportunity to promote the medical center. I get valuable feedback on how we are doing. All around it is a vital part of my job.

Community hospitals in rural areas are often among the largest employers in town. We provide professional-level jobs, salaries, and wages that support the local economy. At GRMC, half my co-workers live outside of Grinnell including myself (I live in nearby Brooklyn, Iowa) and we impact the economies of several communities. GRMC is but one part in a larger healthcare sector of physician practices and their staff, pharmacies, therapists, and more. The excellent retirement communities in Grinnell rely heavily on a quality healthcare system to care for their residents who tend to use healthcare services more frequently. And, accessibility to quality health care influences the decision people make to retire to Grinnell.

It all ties back to my determination to correct the unfair Medicare payment system for tweener hospitals like GRMC, for better reimbursement rates for physicians, and more.

America’s community hospitals are too important to residents who rely on having quality, accessible, and affordable healthcare to fail. We are too important to area economic development and the local economy. We’re not asking for a bailout, we’re just asking for a level playing field.

Bringing D.C. to DSM

I had the opportunity to attend the President’s Forum on Health Care Reform in Des Moines on March 23. This forum was one of four held throughout the country to gather ideas and input on what folks want to see in healthcare reform.

Sen. Tom Harkin, Rep. Leonard Boswell, Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, and Nancy-Ann DeParle, the Obama administration’s health care reform advisor, were all present at this forum, moderated by Iowa Governor Chet Culver.

Tackling healthcare reform is a monumental task. There are so many layers that are interconnected. Accessibility, cost, insurance coverage, Medicare, Medicaid, facilities, and more…it’s hard to know where to begin.

Rep. Boswell made two opening comments…one about the inequity of Medicare payment between states, with Iowa at the bottom of the list and one about the Medicare tweener hospital issue that affects GRMC, seven other Iowa hospitals, and about 400 community hospitals across the country. It was great to hear our Congressman tell our story to another audience. He actually handed our advocacy materials on this issue to the new Healthcare Reform Leader in the Whitehouse, Ms. DeParle.

I feel hopeful that the beginnings of reform will happen this year and that the tweener issue will be addressed. Senate Finance Committee leaders Sen. Grassley and Sen. Max Baucus, (D-MT) are in the best position to make sure our legislation moves forward. Both have gone on record in support of fixing the unfair Medicare payment system and the situation it has created for tweener hospitals like GRMC.

I’m gearing up for another visit to Washington, D.C. in a few weeks for the annual meeting of the American Hospital Association along with several of our board members. Many of you shared some incredible stories about your experiences with GRMC for a publication I’m taking to my meetings with Congressional leaders during that time. Thank you for taking the time to do this. My intention is to put names, faces, and the words of real people who appreciate what is available at GRMC in front of these decision-makers to illustrate why communities like ours need a strong and healthy hospital.

In the meantime, I keep telling GRMC’s story to make a change for the better.

Hospital D-I-Y

We’re in the midst of renovating several areas of the hospital. The areas are all visible to patients and visitors. We’re finding the renovation process kind of like one of those domino sculptures you may have seen on TV. One domino can’t fall until another one does.

We’re working our way to the ultimate goal of a much needed expansion and renovation of our physical therapy department. To get there, however, we’ve had to create the new Neon Café, so that we could make room for the human resources and volunteer departments to move, so that we can get to the physical therapy department via the current human resources department, and the old Tyson room… Sounds complicated, but it’s not.

So, how are we doing this given our budget constraints? Like you do at home: we do-it-ourselves.

We have some awesome folks making great spaces at GRMC. If you look around you see their handiwork everywhere including: the Tomasek Conference Room, Mitchell Meditation Room, The Glass Gift Box, and the new lab waiting and lobby area. Each of these new spaces is expertly constructed largely by our in-house staff. Now they have added the Neon Café to their list of recently renovated spaces. But they aren’t sitting back on their accomplishments. Work continues on the new human resources department offices at the northeast employee entrance of the hospital.

I’m proud of our staff and the work they do to help us maintain and improve on our facilities for our patients, visitors, and staff.

HCAHPS is Just the Beginning

Recently I commented that the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, or HCAHPS, report has ranked GRMC very well on patient satisfaction from data collected in the patient experience survey. This excellent rating comes only after the hard work of many people helping to create an environment that fosters employee ownership.

Some of the success comes by building a culture where education supports great service such as our Compassion In Action program. This seven-year journey has a simple mission statement:
“Our way to create and enhance a service excellence journey to build patient loyalty, promote teamwork, and celebrate the joy of caring.”

Other focus areas include our Pursuit of Pride survey, where employees have told us to do a better job of holding people accountable for their performance and attitudes. Overthe last several years, a great deal of effort incorporated our values into the job descriptions and evaluation process. Integrity, compassion, cooperative spirit, innovation, and service are now part of the way we evaluate and reward our staff.

Finally, we have spent time thinking about and implementing a more healing environment. From our meditation room to the healing garden, the bird aviary to the art collection, integrated health to fitness and wellness, we have worked hard to create a better healing environment for both our patients and employees. All these efforts make a difference for our mission and the folks that carry it out on a daily basis.

I will also tell you that we are not resting on our laurels, no indeed. We know we can do even better. These survey results give us insights into where we can put new energy and efforts to improve on our current great work. We know we are not perfect and when delivering something as personal, complex, and expensive as healthcare there will always be opportunities for getting better. And that is one of the reasons I have called GRMC home for more than 15 years. Way to go team! I am proud of you!

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent GRMC’s positions, strategies, or opinions.

GRMC Board “Advancing”!

Friday and Saturday, February 13-14, the GRMC Board of Directors held its annual “Board Advance” at the Postels Community Health Park in downtown Grinnell. What is a board advance? It is a two-day meeting formerly called a “retreat.” The purpose of the meeting is to primarily focus on the future of GRMC and do our strategic planning and so it dawned on us we ought to call it an “advance” instead of a “retreat”!

We use a 12- to 24-month rolling strategic planning approach and usually spend the first hour reviewing the performance of the organization in the prior year. For details on the success and challenges of 2008 you can refer to my “Good Bye 2008” blog posted earlier this year. The rest of the meeting is focused on looking forward and deciding on the priorities of how we are going to spend our time, energy and resources advancing the mission of the medical center.

We spend time in small group discussions on topics such as building on our “Optimal Healing Environment” and big projects including the acquisition of major clinical technology. We also discussed advancing our Blueprint for Health (name for our last major capital fund drive that netted a whopping $8.2 million) projects such as the physical and occupational therapy department renovation and expansion. We discussed the ongoing success of our quest to be a national leader in quality, patient safety and service excellence. It was also enjoyable discussing the strong culture we have of employee ownership in the mission of GRMC as evidenced by our impressive patient satisfaction scores.

The board also spent time evaluating its own performance both collectively and individually. The survey tool we have used was discussed and our Trustee Organization and Education Committee plans to revise the survey and process we have used the past several years. We identified several areas of focus for education and improvement activities for best practice governance for the coming year.

On Saturday, members of the medical staff leadership team joined the board for in-depth review of our physician recruitment plan and discussion about our relationship with other hospitals in Iowa. Four physicians serve on the board and along with members of the medical staff executive committee and section chiefs, there was excellent representation from our medical staff. GRMC enjoys a very strong relationship between its board, medical staff and administration. This is key to good strategic planning.

I am so very thankful for community leaders willing to donate their precious time and talents to the mission of Grinnell Regional. We are blessed with talented and committed women and men that believe in what we do and that we are there when people need us. We definitely “advanced” our cause and I am very optimistic we will continue to make a difference to the people we are privileged to serve.

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent GRMC’s positions, strategies, or opinions.

You Never Know Who You Might Meet

While I was in Washington, D.C., recently, I had a few interesting moments.

The first night, I was waiting in the hotel bar waiting to meet other NRAC (National Rural Advisory Committee) members for dinner. Two people sat down next to me and were discussing restaurants in the area and they asked the bartender if he had heard of a particular hot spot. He had not, so they asked me and I reported that although I had heard of the restaurant, I had not dined there. It seemed to me that they were looking for recommendations, so I pulled out the list of about 20 restaurants the concierge had printed off for me and began to point out places where I had eaten in the past and which ones I thought they might enjoy. The gentleman then inquired about what I thought about the hotel and I said I thought it was a great place to stay. This is the hotel the government uses for the NRAC when we are in D.C. for this meeting. He smiled and told me he was glad to hear I liked the place, since he was the general manager! The hotel was the Sofitel, a French hotel. He then bought me a glass of wine and we had a delightful conversation until my colleagues arrived.

The next day, I was leaving the meeting room on the second floor and was invited into one of the elevators with the general manager and two other gentlemen. He greeted me and asked me how my dinner was the night before. I told him it was excellent and went on to say with a smile that we had eaten in his restaurant. The other men were speaking French. The elevator abruptly stopped and the control panel went dark. We were stuck! One of the men in the elevator with us was the French ambassador to the United States. He had just given a speech to the media down the hall from our meeting room. We engaged in a wonderful conversation about our new president and his popularity in Europe, French versus California wine (we agreed to disagree on which was better), and his take on the global economy. Meanwhile, the general manager nervously talked in French on his cell phone to his maintenance staff outside feverishly trying to open the door.

At one point the lights went off so all four of us powered on our cell phones to light up the elevator. I showed them a silly picture I had taken the day before of the U.S. Capitol when I was on the Hill meeting with staff members of our congressional delegation on building support for the legislation they have introduced on the “Tweener” Medicare payment issues. I explained I tried to take the roof off the Capitol to see if Mr. Obama was inside!



The maintenance staff opened the door about 40 minutes later and we were all pulled up and out of the elevator which had been stuck between floors. I saw the general manager again later that evening and he bought me another glass of wine with a twinkle in his eye and said although he had never been stuck in an elevator before, he was sure glad to have been in there since the ambassador was on board. I must admit, I was glad to have been there as well, because it is not everyday a country boy from Iowa gets to have a one-on-one conversation with an ambassador!

On my flight home from Washington, Karen and Jim Nussle were on the same flight. Unlike the French ambassador, I do know Jim pretty well going back to his days as the U.S. Congressman from northeast Iowa. We worked together on a number of rural health issues. He was a member of Congress that truly cared about rural healthcare, understood the issues, and was a strong voice. I had not had a chance to talk with him much since has appointment as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. You know; the guy responsible for helping to draft the federal budget and responsible for managing the largest financial enterprise in the world…the U.S. Government! Basically he was the CFO for America. We talked between flights for about a half hour and I was just mesmerized as he talked about daily meetings with the President…sitting in Situation Room at least one day a week. He was in the room for every major decision made by the President over the last couple of years!

For a government wonk like me, the conversation was tantalizing. What was President Bush really like? How about Chaney? Jim was gracious and friendly as always and seemed to enjoy talking about it all in past tense. I asked if he was relieved to be out from what must have been overwhelming stress and a look of relief spread across his face. He did say it was absolutely fascinating…the understatement of the week!

You just never know who you might run into when traveling to our nation’s Capitol…for me it was a very memorable 24 hours.

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent GRMC’s positions, strategies, or opinions.