It’s been a long time in the making but HCA has finally announced the completion of its acquisition of Galichia Heart Hospital in Wichita, Kansas.

Back in December of 2010, HCA set out to purchase the 82-bed acute-care hospital in Wichita, its would-be second facility along with the HCA’s flagship in the area, 760-bed Wesley Medical Center.

The decision to join HCA was impart due to a federal health care reform law in March of 2010 that placed limits on growth of existing physician-owned hopsitals, but Joseph Galichia, the hospital’s founder, says it was always his long-held vision to eventually affiliate with a larger health care organization.

The deal was originally expected to go through in the first quarter of 2011.

The acquisition improves Wesley Medical Center’s reach in the community by increasing the number of emergency facilities in the area. Galichia is now its third.

“The addition of Galichia Heart Hospital is a great complement to our existing operations and patient services in Wichita,” said Jeffrey A. Dorsey, President of HCA’s Continental Division. “We are very pleased to welcome Galichia to the HCA family.”

Galichia first opened its doors in 2001. It has since been promoted as a medical tourism destination, opening its doors to more patients by venturing into acute-care and full service operations than standing by its original cardiology path. Cardiology still accounts for 50% of its business, however.

Initially, Galichia Medical Group was considered as part of the transaction but Wesley decided later to focus on its emergency services instead.

Dr. Galichia has a long history with Wesley and we are very happy to have him join the HCA family.

It’s a wonderful and fortunate feeling to be recognized as one of the top healthcare providers in the country. And while we take great pride in that recognition, we at HCA would like to give back to the communities we serve by recognizing them. The first week of February is Patient Recognition Week with February 3 as the highlight of the week with Patient Recognition Day.

On this day HCA would like to express what a golden opportunity it is for our management team, physicians, nurses, technologists, technicians, ancillary personnel and volunteers to be able to reflect on how the attitude and actions of all at HCA affect the care and satisfaction of our patients.

As healthcare providers it is our duty to concern ourselves implicitly to the care, loyalty and satisfaction of all of our patients. During this special week, we can empathize with our patients in understanding that care goes beyond the technical aspects but to the exactness of care and the encouragement that goes with it.

National Patient Recognition Week has its own website full of information on the event and you will find further information at HCAHPS (pronounced H-caps), frequently referred to as CAHPS® Hospital Survey. It measures a patient’s perspective of care received and of overall hospital experience.

HCA’s own system-wide initiative, IMPaCT [Improving Patient Centered Treatment] focuses on our commitment to improving the patient experience and our HCAHPS performance. The IMPaCT ATLAS page provides you with detailed information and access to tools to gain a better understanding of HCA’s patient satisfaction efforts.

NPRW is our chance to examine and demonstrate our commitment to patient care, consumer advocacy and patient-inspired best practices and outcomes. The official observation of NPRW started back in 1995 as a reminder to all healthcare providers “to put care-ism before capitalism, lest we forget our reason for being, caring for those in need of medical and health care”.

While your body doesn’t exactly function like a car, it can get out of tune like one. That’s especially true of your heart. Improving heart health leads to less risk of disease and a better, more enjoyable life.

If you haven’t already done so, go to HCA’s health resource H2U and click on “Health Library” for a number of video and print resources to help you learn more about daily choices to improve your health.

Even with all of the free and readily available information on cardiovascular health at people’s disposal, heart disease remains the number one cause of death in America. February is American Heart Month and after all the major holiday affairs of big and not-so-healthy eating, it’s a good time for some assessment of the ol’ ticker.

The American Heart Association has compiled seven steps you can take for a healthier heart. You can stop heart disease BEFORE it even starts. The AHA believes that following “Life’s Simple 7″ can help anyone improve their overall health. The steps include:

Get Active

Eat Better

Lose Weight

Stop Smoking

Control Cholesterol

Manage Blood Pressure

Reduce Blood Sugar

My Life Check was designed by the American Heart Association with the goal of improved health by educating the public on how best to live. These measures have one unique thing in common: any person can make these changes, the steps are not expensive to take and even modest improvements to your health will make a big difference. Start with one or two. This simple, seven step list has been developed to deliver on the hope we all have–to live a long, productive healthy life.

Thomson Reuters Announces Highest Performing Hospital Systems That Improve Quality, Have Lower 30-Day Mortality Rate

Chosen from more than 300 healthcare systems across the country, HCA Central and West Texas Division was named among the nation’s 15 top U.S. health systems by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare.

The award recognizes hospital systems that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, patient satisfaction and operational efficiency, based on balanced system-wide clinical performance.

HCA Central and West Texas Division, including Central Texas-based St. David’s HealthCare and El Paso-based Las Palmas Del Sol Healthcare, was one of only two health systems in Texas to receive this ranking.

The Thomson Reuters “15 Top Health Systems” study singled out 15 hospital systems that achieved superior clinical outcomes based on a composite score of eight measures of quality, patient perception of care and efficiency.

“We are pleased that our commitment to high-quality care is receiving national attention from such an esteemed organization as Thomson Reuters,” David Huffstutler, president of HCA Central and West Texas Division, said.

The following were among the key findings in the study:

• Lower 30-Day Mortality Rates: 15 Top Health Systems held post-discharge 30-day mortality rates steady, while peer health systems demonstrated a significant increase in post-discharge mortality.
• Better Survival Rates: Winning hospitals had 17 percent fewer deaths than expected considering patient severity, while non-winning hospitals had 4 percent more deaths than expected.
• Fewer Complications: Patients of the winning health systems had 19 percent fewer complications.
• Shorter Hospital Stays: Patients treated in the winning system hospitals have a median average length of stay of 4.7 days, nearly half a day shorter than their peers’ median of 5.1 days.
• Better Patient Safety and Core Measure Adherence: Top health systems had 23 percent fewer adverse patient safety events than expected and had better adherence to core measures of care than their peers.

U.S. health systems with two or more short-term, general, non-federal hospitals; cardiac and orthopedic hospitals; and critical access hospitals were assessed in the study. Researchers looked at eight metrics that gauge clinical quality and efficiency: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length of stay, 30-day mortality rate, 30-day readmission rate, adherence to clinical standards of care (evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), and HCAHPS patient survey score (part of a national initiative sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to measure the quality of care in hospitals).

The study relied on public data from the 2010 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review data and the CMS Hospital Compare data sets.

Researchers from the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals program have analyzed and reported on the performance of individual hospitals since 1993.

2030 might seem like a long time from now but for the New Year’s Day newborns of 2012 it is their high school graduation date. HCA was there to welcome two such newborns into the world within a minute of the clock striking midnight. Jaden Adams came into the world at 12:00:05 at Ogden Regional Medical Center in Ogden Utah and Ethan Jaquez at 12:01 at Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas. We would like to ring in the New Year by sharing both of their wonderful stories with you.

(Erin Hooley/Standard-Examiner)

Jaden was born five seconds after the hour as the nurses finished counting down the clock in the birthing center of HCA’s Ogden Regional Medical Center in Ogden, Utah. Jaden was the first baby of the New Year at Ogden Regional and is thought to be the first baby in the entire state of Utah. It was Dr. Fred Seale’s first delivery of the night. A whopping 8 pounds, 9 ounces and 21½ inches, Jaden was the only eventful part of the evening for the hospital.

And for first time parents, Sandy and Bryant Adams, it was a thankfully uneventful delivery.

You can read the rest of their story here.

(Mark Lambie/El Paso Times)

In another part of the country, less than a minute later, Ethan Jaquez entered the world. A healthy 7 pounds and 2 ounces, Ethan was delivered at 12:01 a.m., New Year’s Day at HCA’s Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas. It was an unexpected visit for the mother, Cristina Jaquez, twenty days early, in fact; but Ethan was the first born baby in El Paso County in 2012.

Veronica Muñoz, the charge nurse for the postpartum floor said in an interview with The El Paso Times, “The birth was a great thing for both the mother and the hospital – to have the honor of the first baby born in 2012. I had never worked on New Year’s Day before; it’s great to see this happen,” Muñoz said.

You can Read the newspaper’s report of Ethan Dominguez’s birth here.

click to enlarge

It was a new project for Healthcare IT News, the Best Places To Work: Hospital IT Departments, designed to recognize the best IT departments demonstrating deep respect for their employees and the work they do. Ranking categories included: day-to-day work, the IT team, management, hospital leadership, workplace culture, training and development and compensation.

And of the 10 best medium-sized hospitals (those with 101 to 350 beds), Frankfort Regional Medical Center of HCA’s Capital Division, located in Frankfort, KY, placed second.

The IT team at Frankfort, led by Craig Willard, is only a group of ten, but they possess a broad range of knowledge with strong technical skills, while also being good thinkers. “We have very strong technical employees in the facility,” Willard says. “But we can also be very creative, which makes us a lot better.”

He calls his department “forward thinking, but fun”, a balance that enables his team to thrive in a hectic and constantly evolving workplace.

To lighten stress, the group often plays practical jokes on each other. Things like flipping each other’s monitor screens upside down and leaving a colleague with the task of trying to right it.

Yet in between the jokes the team still manages to maintain the integrity of their department by getting a huge amount of work done in a timely manner.

When their MEDITECH system went live in October, it was due in large part to over two years of work of determining the right technology. Of course IT folk have the capacity to handle the most mundane technical complications in areas that most others are completely inept, but when it comes to the extremely technical, Willard’s team really knuckles down and works endlessly until the problem has been resolved.

Part of that comes from Willard’s encouragement for his staff to be team oriented and to pursue further education in their skill area by taking advantage of the $6,000 the hospital pays toward class tuition, up to $24,000 in total.

Though most of his team is self-taught, “I’m a firm believer in education. It’s opened up doors for me as it will for my staff.”

Three of his employees are now pursuing bachelor’s degrees in business administration, computer science/information security and general education.

But Willard says he never hires based on an impressive resume; rather he looks for the right personality.

“When you’re in a customer-focused environment, you can educate someone, but you can’t teach someone to be a nice person, or (to be) someone who goes above and beyond,” Willard says.
Congratulations Craig. You and your team are true assets to Frankfort Medical and to HCA.

HCA has launched a new site dedicated to hiring veterans and active duty personnel as part of a national campaign aligned with the Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring Our Heroes program. The website at VeteransAtHCA.com details our hiring initiative to help military veterans transition back into civilian employment by extending opportunities requisitioned by our HCA affiliates.

To help get the initiative under way, we have set up several hiring fairs in 20 states running from December 2011 to May of 2012. HCA recruiters will be travelling city to city sharing information about all veteran career opportunities.

The events listed below are open to veterans of all service branches, transitioning military and National Guard and Reserve members.

We encourage all of our veterans to discover their next private sector career at HCA.

DECEMBER

Houston TX, December 8, 2011
Hiring Our Heroes/RecruitMilitary Veteran Opportunity Expo
Minute Maid Park
501 Crawford Street
11AM – 3PM
Download Event Poster

Smyrna TN, December 15, 2011
Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Job Fair
Smyrna Air Base
Tennessee National Guard
Regional Training Institute, Building 500
1PM – 3PM
Download Event Poster

JANUARY

Nashville TN, January 26, 2012
Opportunity Expo Proudly Sponsored by HCA
LP Field
One Titans Way
11AM – 3PM

FEBRUARY

Atlanta GA 9-Feb-12

San Antonio TX 16-Feb-12

Tampa Bay FL 23-Feb-12

MARCH

Dallas TX 1-Mar-12

Columbia SC 6-Mar-12

Louisville KY 22-Mar-12

APRIL

Chicago IL 5-Apr-12

Denver CO 19-Apr-12

MAY

Mobile AL 10-May-12

There’s a nationwide campaign underway right now to help the one million plus unemployed military veterans make the transition back into the civilian workforce. Initiating the transition, however, is often a difficult task because veteran skills don’t always translate well to the private sector. Nonetheless, HCA has initiated its own hiring campaign, and has over 4400 veterans already employed across the country.

One positive takeaway from hiring veterans is that their disciplined nature and experience as team players enable them to work efficiently and productively in challenging environments.

Currently the unemployment rate of our veterans is over 11.7%.

Our internal veteran-focused hiring program is designed to understand the military experience so that managers and recruiters can better ascertain which opportunities veterans would be best suited for meaningful employment at HCA.

Earlier this month we held a parade at our corporate campus in Nashville to honor all of HCA’s currently employed veterans. Here’s a short video excerpt of that event.

In addition to its own initiative, HCA has been named to the U.S Chamber of Commerce’s private sector Veterans Employment Advisory Council (VEAC) along with some of the largest employers across several industries in the country as part of the Chamber’s “Hiring Our Heroes” program. Read more about our involvement.

We are planning on participating in numerous job fairs for veterans this year and in early 2012. Coming up in our schedule of participatory events is the December 8 Veteran Opportunity Expo at Minute Maid Park, Home of the Houston Astros in Houston, Texas. The event runs from 11:30AM to 3:00PM.

This is just one of 100 hiring fairs for veterans and military spouses scheduled by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and produced by RecruitMilitary and The American Legion.

HCA is proud to be part of the “Hiring Our Heroes” campaign. We have over 7,000 positions in the company country-wide waiting to be filled.

Look at us go! For a third consecutive year, Modernhealthcare.com has ranked Doctors Hospital of Sarasota, an HCA West Florida hospital, one of the 100 best places to work in healthcare, this year ranking in at #5.

For me, the annual report represents notable worth to the HCA community as it recognizes the top 100 “outstanding” health care employers, including hospitals, insurers, suppliers, and consulting groups and promotes at a national level our continued efforts to improve healthcare across the country.

Robert Meade, CEO of Doctors Hospital of Sarasota was excited to relate on hearing the mention that “[t]his recognition means so much because it is based not only on the care we provide, but also on the feedback of our employees. We are able to provide the high quality medical care that we are known for because the employees of our organization know that we are committed to their wellbeing as well as the wellbeing of our patients.”

Doctors Hospital’s motto is “Putting Patients First”. It is the foundation of their passion for quality healthcare. Throughout its history the hospital has employed several measures to achieve this goal and has been recognized for its efforts on several accounts, including Industry leading performance on public Clinical Measures, such as the CMS Core Measures for Congestive Heart Failure, Pneumonia, Acute Myocardial Infarction, and Surgical Care Improvement Project, recognition by the Joint Commission for Advanced Heart Failure, Spinal Fusion, and Joint Replacement for Hip and Knee to name a few and for their most recent implementation of the Broselow System, which ensures the proper dosing and administration of drugs to children.

click to see the list of 100 companies

For the curious as to what merits an organization’s recognition by Modern Healthcare, the organization must have at least 25 employees for one. Employers can then submit a no-cost application detailing company policies, practices, benefits and employee demographics. Finally, and what is the real decision maker here, employees are given the chance to evaluate their employers in eight categories:

• Leadership and planning
• Culture and communications
• Role satisfaction
• Working environment
• Relationship with supervisor
• Training and development
• Pay and benefits
• Overall satisfaction

To come out #5 of 100 recognized applicants in the nation shows the integrity of HCA’s commitment not only to our community but to all employed in the HCA family.

Great job, Sarasota! Your 155-bed operation is a monument to our success.

Just want to remind folks that the online application cycle for the 2012 COO/CNO cohort is quickly approaching. This year it will begin on November 15th and run through January 6th.

You can sign up now for an email reminder, get alerted on Twitter or Facebook or check back often on the executive development site for updates.

We will post a link that will take you to the application for the program as the starting date draws closer.