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Rural hospitals share knowledge
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| From left, White Mountain's Skye Trickey (activities coordinator), Lesley Wolf (social worker), Myrna Shellhorn (dietary manager), Stephanie Geisler (billing supervisor), Amber Norwood (NCCH case manager asst.), Tina Smith (NCCH case manager, RN), Donna Muder (CNO) and Yvonne Olmos (swing bed coordinator) at the Best Western Kiva Room for lunch. (Carol Broeder/ARN) |
By Ainslee S. Wittig/Arizona Range News
On Feb. 26, a delegation from the White Mountain Regional Medical Center in Springerville visited Northern Cochise Community Hospital to learn more about its "swing bed" program.
NCCH Case Manager Tina Smith said the program "gives the family time to adjust, and gives the patient time to adjust and heal," whether the patient has had an accident, surgery or an illness, before returning to everyday life.
Swing bed is 24 hours skilled nursing care plus the benefit of rehabilitation therapies and social services to help patients transition to a long-term care facility or to rehabilitate from surgery, illness, or accident.
Smith added that the swing bed program is "important to rural communities in keeping its patients in town. Rural hospitals have suffered empty beds, while nursing homes are full."
Following a morning of visiting with NCCH departments, Donna Muder, the Chief Nursing Officer at White Mountain, said, "Your swing bed program is wonderful. It's invaluable to your community and they have embraced it. We hope to do that in our community."
White Mountain started a pilot project swing bed program Nov. 1, 2009, and they are looking to make their program complete.
Muder said, "Willcox was so highly spoken of - we kept hearing about Willcox's successful (swing bed) program, and that they already had over 200 patients."
Technically, the program started at NCCH in 2002, but it was underutilized until last year, said Smith.
When hospitalists joined NCCH in July 2009, this allowed for more doctor-patient interaction for the swing bed patients.
"You have to have buy-in from the doctors for a program like this. The (hospitalist) doctors incorporate the patients into their day," Smith said.
"We also now have two physical therapists, an assistant physical therapist and an occupational therapist available. The progress made (with patients) has doubled," she said.
Yvonne Olmos, White Mountain's swing bed coordinator, said the morning was spent learning how the program is operated at NCCH.
Olmos said they would like to add more activities to the program at White Mountain.
"NCCH has many opportunities for social, occupational and physical activities for the patients," she said.
Smith said, "Activities are a big part of the program because the patients are here for a longer extension of time. They need to partake in activities on different levels (depending on what their diagnosis is), both outside and in bed. We offer activities to patients at least once a day along with a group activity. I would like to offer (individual) activities twice a day.
"We liked the idea of the group from White Mountain Regional Medical Center visiting us - it's not just administration and we both learned a lot," Smith said. "They each went to their different departments, where their specialty is. It's like networking!"
"They've also invited us to their facility in May," she said.
NCCH Case Manager Tina Smith said the program "gives the family time to adjust, and gives the patient time to adjust and heal," whether the patient has had an accident, surgery or an illness, before returning to everyday life.
Swing bed is 24 hours skilled nursing care plus the benefit of rehabilitation therapies and social services to help patients transition to a long-term care facility or to rehabilitate from surgery, illness, or accident.
Smith added that the swing bed program is "important to rural communities in keeping its patients in town. Rural hospitals have suffered empty beds, while nursing homes are full."
Following a morning of visiting with NCCH departments, Donna Muder, the Chief Nursing Officer at White Mountain, said, "Your swing bed program is wonderful. It's invaluable to your community and they have embraced it. We hope to do that in our community."
White Mountain started a pilot project swing bed program Nov. 1, 2009, and they are looking to make their program complete.
Muder said, "Willcox was so highly spoken of - we kept hearing about Willcox's successful (swing bed) program, and that they already had over 200 patients."
Technically, the program started at NCCH in 2002, but it was underutilized until last year, said Smith.
When hospitalists joined NCCH in July 2009, this allowed for more doctor-patient interaction for the swing bed patients.
"You have to have buy-in from the doctors for a program like this. The (hospitalist) doctors incorporate the patients into their day," Smith said.
"We also now have two physical therapists, an assistant physical therapist and an occupational therapist available. The progress made (with patients) has doubled," she said.
Yvonne Olmos, White Mountain's swing bed coordinator, said the morning was spent learning how the program is operated at NCCH.
Olmos said they would like to add more activities to the program at White Mountain.
"NCCH has many opportunities for social, occupational and physical activities for the patients," she said.
Smith said, "Activities are a big part of the program because the patients are here for a longer extension of time. They need to partake in activities on different levels (depending on what their diagnosis is), both outside and in bed. We offer activities to patients at least once a day along with a group activity. I would like to offer (individual) activities twice a day.
"We liked the idea of the group from White Mountain Regional Medical Center visiting us - it's not just administration and we both learned a lot," Smith said. "They each went to their different departments, where their specialty is. It's like networking!"
"They've also invited us to their facility in May," she said.
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