Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dr. JR Ford and Krista Baty discuss the growth and transformation at Hendrick Medical Center Brownwood

Transcript

Dr. JR Ford and Krista Baty discuss the growth and transformation at Hendrick Medical Center Brownwood · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

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1:14
This is Laura Dirdle with the Becker's Healthcare
1:16
podcast.
1:17
I'm thrilled today to be joined by doctor
1:19
JR Ford, emergency department medical director and emergency
1:22
medicine physician at Hendrick Medical Center, Brownwood,
1:25
and Christa Beatty,
1:27
chief administrative officer at Hendrick Medical Center, Brownwood.
1:30
Doctor Ford, Christa, thank you so much for
1:32
being here today.
1:33
Thank you for having us, Laura. Thanks, Laura.
1:36
Now I'm looking forward to our conversation, and
1:38
it'll be really exciting to learn a little
1:40
bit more about,
1:41
you know, some of the great things that
1:42
you're doing at Hendrick Medical Center, Brownwood, and
1:45
really how you're thinking about growth and development
1:47
in the future. But before we dive in
1:49
there, I would love to learn a little
1:50
bit more about you both as well as
1:52
Hendrick Medical Center, Brownwood. So, Krista, can we
1:55
start with you? Can you tell us about
1:56
Hendrick Medical Center and really where you're at
1:59
today and where you're headed?
2:01
Absolutely.
2:02
Thank you again for your time. The Hendrick
2:04
Medical Center in Brownwood is located in Central
2:06
Texas.
2:08
We are about 2 hours from major metropolitan
2:11
area,
2:12
part of a system, part of the Hendrick
2:14
Health System,
2:15
which is comprised of 3 hospitals.
2:19
The system,
2:20
currently has about 54 100 employees and serves
2:23
about 24 counties.
2:25
Here in Brownwood,
2:27
we have about 19,000
2:29
people in our city
2:31
and then serve about 38,000
2:33
here in our 8 county area.
2:35
So
2:37
currently, we are seeing about 45
2:41
to 70 patients on the inpatient side.
2:44
At acquisition time 4 years ago when Hendrick
2:47
acquired,
2:48
Brownwood what was Brownwood Regional? There were 19
2:51
patients in the hospital. So we are very
2:53
proud of the growth that we have experienced
2:55
over the last 4 years.
2:58
And that's really impressive to hear. And certainly
3:01
great that you've been able to,
3:03
continue to grow and develop it and better
3:05
serve the community,
3:07
since that acquisition.
3:08
Now, doctor Ford, from your perspective, you know,
3:12
could you tell us a little bit about
3:13
yourself and your career? How have you evolved
3:16
and what brought you to Hendrick Medical Center,
3:18
Brownwood?
3:20
Thank you, Laura. So I'm a board certified
3:23
emergency medicine physician. I had been practicing
3:26
in Abilene,
3:27
Texas under Hendrick Medical Center System
3:31
since 2017.
3:33
I did residency at John Peter Smith in
3:35
Fort Worth and came out to Abilene
3:37
to work.
3:39
And September of last year, I was asked
3:42
to come
3:43
lead
3:44
a change
3:45
down in the Brownwood emergency department. And so
3:48
they brought me to help,
3:49
help our ER be a little more efficient,
3:51
but also help our relationship with the community
3:54
and just bring a little bit
3:57
of,
3:58
you know, kindness, thoughtfulness,
4:00
and compassionate care to the emergency department.
4:04
Well, that's fascinating. You know? And certainly, all
4:07
of those things are so important to having
4:09
a functional and and, beneficial
4:12
ED for the entire community. I I know
4:14
from the business and and just administrative standpoint,
4:17
how challenging it can be to run an
4:19
efficient emergency department, but then, 2, to inject
4:22
that kind of sense of kindness, compassion in
4:25
community within the care delivered,
4:27
just takes everything up a notch. And so
4:30
that's really cool to hear that, you know,
4:32
you are have the opportunity to leave that
4:35
type of change.
4:36
Now, you know, when taking that context, what
4:39
are some of your,
4:41
could you tell us about that change a
4:42
little bit in some of your top priorities
4:44
for the rest of the year as I
4:45
can imagine it continues to evolve?
4:48
So this year, we finished a remodel and
4:51
expansion of the emergency department.
4:53
We had experienced
4:54
6% growth
4:56
2 years ago and 8% growth this past
4:58
year. And so our volumes have been steadily
5:01
increasing.
5:03
And so we've needed to expand our emergency
5:05
department.
5:06
We went from
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12 rooms to
5:09
15 rooms and ability to do some hall
5:11
beds when things are very busy. We've increased
5:14
nursing staffing in the emergency department
5:16
as well.
5:17
And so and we've also are looking at
5:20
expanding,
5:21
some APP coverage
5:23
to kinda help when things are a little
5:25
bit busy down there to kinda see people
5:28
and triage and develop a provider and triage,
5:31
model to help see people quickly and make
5:34
sure everybody gets
5:36
seen and evaluated
5:37
in a timely manner. And so looking forward
5:40
to the rest of this year, it's looking
5:42
to
5:43
enjoy our new space, which we're very appreciative
5:46
for all the remodel down there. It's
5:48
been awesome to have
5:50
and very appreciative that the administration
5:53
felt the need to help us out with
5:55
that. And then also just learning new systems
5:59
as we're
6:00
having our consistent area to go ahead
6:03
and see everybody in a timely fashion and
6:05
make sure they get the appropriate workup orders
6:07
seen quickly and make sure they know they're
6:09
being taken care of well.
6:12
That's such an excellent point. And, you know,
6:14
definitely fantastic that you have the support of
6:16
the hospital administration behind you. So,
6:19
you know, you can have the resources you
6:22
need in order to,
6:23
continue to boost the emergency department and and
6:27
provide a better service to the broader community.
6:30
Krista, from your perspective,
6:31
could you tell us a little bit about,
6:33
you know,
6:35
how the hospital was able to, you know,
6:37
really make this decision to improve the ED
6:41
and some of the results that you've been
6:42
able to see so far?
6:44
Absolutely.
6:46
When we joined the Hendrick Health System,
6:49
we knew that in order to make this
6:51
a successful
6:52
transition, that we were gonna have to rebuild
6:55
the trust,
6:57
not only
6:58
of the patients and our community, but also
7:00
for our
7:01
physicians and our providers,
7:03
and then also the hospitals, the smaller hospitals
7:07
that are in our region.
7:09
And so,
7:10
I think it's pretty much about the people.
7:13
And so going in and making sure that
7:15
we have the right nursing staff, the right
7:18
support staff, and also the right physicians,
7:21
in order to provide that high quality care.
7:24
I'm happy to say that currently, we have
7:26
zero contract labor in our emergency department,
7:29
and that has been very intentional with the
7:31
recruitment
7:32
of nursing staff. Our,
7:35
leadership, nursing leadership has really thought outside the
7:38
box in order to
7:40
recruit recruit high quality,
7:43
nursing staff, and so I contributed to the
7:46
people.
7:46
We have been able to add,
7:48
in the
7:50
hospital market, 230
7:52
additional employees
7:55
since acquisition. And so when you have
7:59
the ability
8:00
to be very picky about the people that
8:02
you hire,
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I think you provide a different service and
8:05
a different level of care to help, rebuild
8:08
the trust of of the community. And so
8:11
our goal is to keep patients close to
8:13
home.
8:15
The closest higher level of care,
8:17
Abilene Hospital, is about an hour and 15
8:19
minutes away. And so we know that it's
8:21
important
8:23
to our community to stay close to home
8:25
to receive their health care.
8:27
We fortunately
8:28
have,
8:29
a health system that is very supportive
8:32
and, helps us to provide
8:34
not just the staff but the infrastructure
8:38
and support financially to be able to to
8:41
provide those, services.
8:45
That's amazing to hear. And, you know, especially
8:47
thinking about the adding staff portion of it,
8:50
you know, it's, been such a challenging few
8:52
years to try to recruit and retain talent
8:55
across the board. And so it's impressive to
8:57
hear that you've been able to add the
8:59
right kind of,
9:01
muscle to your team in order to see
9:03
this transformation out and,
9:06
have the opportunity to continue to grow and
9:08
expand the services that you're providing.
9:11
Absolutely.
9:13
Now, you know, you you've been able to
9:15
tell us,
9:16
or talk through some of this transformation in
9:18
broad terms. I I'm wondering what other programs
9:20
or initiatives have been most needle moving for
9:23
you in the last year or so.
9:26
I can tell you from the emergency department
9:28
standpoint,
9:29
our interventional cardiology
9:31
program led by doctor Blanc
9:33
has been such
9:35
a great service to have.
9:37
Doctor Blanc is out here, and he is,
9:41
he is seeing everybody that he can to
9:43
taking care of a large population of a
9:45
large,
9:46
older population that we have in our in
9:49
our eight county area.
9:51
And, he is he is amazing.
9:54
He he goes out into the other areas.
9:57
He has outreach clinics
9:59
in, multiple cities,
10:02
that are around Brownwood
10:04
and make sure to go out there and
10:05
see people where they are at instead of
10:08
everybody coming to Brownwood and so people can
10:10
stay closer to home.
10:13
We've added dialysis
10:14
recently
10:16
whenever we needed to have inpatient dialysis done
10:19
on a patient. So even if we're admitting
10:22
a patient who gets Monday, Wednesday, Friday dialysis,
10:26
even if we're admitting them for 24 or
10:27
48 hours, we were having to transfer these
10:29
patients out of the emergency department.
10:31
And that's no longer the case. The administration,
10:35
got us a nephrology program here to help
10:38
us do inpatient dialysis. So that has helped
10:41
us with not having to transfer out so
10:43
many patients.
10:44
We have excellent orthopedic coverage, excellent GI coverage.
10:48
And
10:49
so whenever
10:51
we are finding a reason to transfer people
10:53
out, we start looking at ways to keep
10:56
folks.
10:57
One of
10:59
the most impressive turnarounds
11:00
has been our pediatric program.
11:03
And
11:04
we are starting to we have had
11:07
a 300%
11:08
increase in patient days, pediatric patient days? Yes.
11:11
In pediatric patient days to take care of
11:13
our young ones
11:15
in the area. And Doctor. Morris has been
11:17
a big part of that
11:19
as a local pediatrician.
11:21
And he does an excellent job
11:24
on the inpatient side as well as
11:27
at his office.
11:29
And so as an ER doctor
11:32
several years ago under the previous
11:34
regime,
11:35
we were having to transfer all these people
11:37
out. And I can't tell you how
11:40
hard it is as an ER doctor trying
11:42
to transfer out 4 or 5,
11:45
8 people in a shift. It takes a
11:47
lot of time and resources
11:49
and your
11:50
emergency department kind of comes to a standstill.
11:53
Being able to keep all these people here,
11:56
one, is just excellent for patient care.
11:59
But 2, it also talks about rebuilding trust
12:01
in the community, knowing that people are gonna
12:04
have high quality care right here in their
12:06
own backyards.
12:09
That's amazing to hear. What a you know,
12:11
it was great success story in in being
12:13
able to, like you said, better serve the
12:15
community, have,
12:16
closer care for people within Brownwood and the
12:20
broader area. And then 2, you know, having
12:23
the ability to, for the hospital, just keep
12:26
people,
12:27
there and be able to serve them there
12:29
and become efficient at that type of service
12:31
line. And so it's really cool to hear
12:33
and see. And I can imagine, you know,
12:35
going through the process and looking into,
12:39
you know, what will make this most needle
12:41
moving has really had a great impact,
12:44
on the hospital as well.
12:47
Yes. We're very proud of the things that
12:49
we've been able to do. The community has
12:51
been very supportive, welcomed
12:54
Hendrick with open arms.
12:56
They had been looking for a consistent
13:00
health care provider. And the fact that we
13:03
are locally
13:04
led,
13:05
is a big is a big change for
13:07
them. They're not being run out of another
13:09
state, but
13:11
it's truly locally led.
13:14
That's so so important, especially,
13:17
within, you know, communities, smaller communities in areas
13:20
where
13:21
having that local presence and the local leadership
13:24
really does make a difference.
13:26
Now before we wrap up here, I'm wondering
13:28
how are you thinking about growth and patient
13:30
experience in the future? What do you really
13:32
see as being,
13:34
so important for the continued evolution
13:37
of the hospital?
13:39
We're very excited about the plans that we
13:41
have for,
13:42
moving forward in 2024.
13:45
Our fiscal year just, just started in September.
13:48
And so we're excited to have a clean
13:50
slate and be able to proceed with our
13:52
plans.
13:53
As we said, as we have grown
13:56
our census,
13:58
we have the people to be able to
13:59
take care of them, but we are running
14:01
out of space.
14:02
And so we have a couple of floors
14:04
within the hospital that
14:06
are not currently being used for patient care.
14:10
And so potential projects that we,
14:12
are looking towards are
14:15
expanding our med surg floor.
14:17
Currently, we can take care of 38 patients
14:19
on that floor.
14:21
And you can imagine as we're adding services
14:24
that we have got to
14:25
increase the number of inpatient beds and not
14:28
have to hold those patients in doctor Ford's
14:30
emergency room.
14:32
He wants to take care of those emergency
14:34
room patients, and so we need to get
14:35
those inpatients
14:37
up to an inpatient floor.
14:39
OB,
14:40
maternal services and children's services, is very important
14:43
to us as this community
14:45
grows.
14:46
And so we will be looking at
14:49
the possibility of moving that to a different
14:51
floor and really renovating that floor to make
14:53
it more pediatric friendly,
14:55
and be able to expand those services.
14:58
And then as doctor Ford talked about our
15:00
cardiology services,
15:03
we currently have 1,
15:04
cath lab. And so the addition of a
15:07
second cath lab and supporting services,
15:10
for that
15:11
cardiologist
15:12
cardiology service line is very important. And we
15:14
look to
15:16
look to expand in that direction as well.
15:19
You know, I contribute our success,
15:21
to the culture that we've created being a
15:23
not for profit organization,
15:25
and then truly living,
15:27
the mission that we have that's to provide
15:30
high quality health care with excellence and compassion,
15:33
consistent with the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.
15:36
And so that has truly transformed the culture
15:38
here, at Hendrick Medical Center in Brownwood.
15:42
That's amazing to hear. Doctor Ford, Christa, thank
15:44
you so much for joining us on the
15:46
podcast today. This has been a fantastic conversation.
15:49
I really appreciate you being candid about some
15:51
of the different things you've worked on and
15:52
the successes you've had and look forward to
15:54
connecting with you again in the future.