The Big South Fork Medical Center in Oneida is celebrating three years of operation this week.
BSFMC opened in August 2017, after Florida-based Rennova Health purchased the facility from Mississippi’s Pioneer Health after Pioneer declared bankruptcy and closed the Oneida hospital.
In those three years, the hospital has treated nearly 40,000 patients.
“As we celebrate the third anniversary of the reopening of Big South Fork Medical Center by Rennova Health, we are thankful for the support from the community and the commitment from our team of employees that have enabled the hospital to survive turbulent times and the current pandemic,” BSFMC marketing director Rebecca Lagan said this week. “This support has permitted us to treat 39,600 community based patients in our hospital so far.”
The three years haven’t always been easy. There have been periods of delayed payroll and supply shortages. In the midst of it all, Rennova-owned Jamestown Regional Medical Center closed after losing its agreement with the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and that led to a public feud between Rennova CEO Seamus Lagan and state legislator John Mark Windle, D-Livingston. Lagan sued Windle for defamation, seeking $100,000 in damages, after Windle used the news media to call Lagan an Irish gangster and a crook. However, Lagan later dropped the lawsuit, two weeks after a federal judge had denied Windle’s motion to dismiss it.
Meanwhile, things seem to have stabilized. While the Jamestown hospital closed, neither the Oneida facility nor Jellico Community Hospital — another Rennova-owned facility — never did. And Rebecca Lagan this week highlighted several improvements that have been made or that are ongoing at the local hospital.
“There have been many achievements and improvements in the three years,” she said. “We upgraded our CT scanner to a 64 slice CT scanner to facilitate better diagnosis of patients, implemented hospital medicine programs to provide high quality care to inpatients and on many occasions provided lifesaving care in our emergency room.”
Hal Leftwich was named the hospital’s CEO about one year after it opened, making the move from Florida to Tennessee to take the reigns of the hospital. More recently, Sharlyn Hjelmstad joined the hospital as its chief nursing officer, responsible for planning, directing, controlling and evaluating the functions and personnel of the hospital’s nursing units to ensure high-quality patient care.
“We are excited as our team will continue to grow in the upcoming weeks as we welcome a new Med-Surge manager and laboratory manager to the hospital and believe that the recently opened office in Knoxville to manage a number of Rennova-owned hospitals in Tennessee will provide expertise and management oversight that Big South Fork Medical Center could not afford or sustain on its own,” Lagan said.
The coronavirus pandemic was a bit of a paradigm in health care — it was a public health emergency that resulted in a decreased demand for health care services. Lagan said the pandemic resulted in protective actions being implemented to protect the staff, patients and community. But the pandemic is also preventing a community celebration to mark the hospital’s third anniversary.
“The safety of our patients, employees and community remains our number one priority, and we look forward to future opportunities to celebrate when it is safe to do so,” she said.
Currently, the exterior of the hospital building is being repaired and restored. Lagan said the further repairs and upgrades will be made, moving forward. And, she added, there are plans for more improvements in the near future.
We are pleased to be currently repairing and restoring the exterior of the hospital building that has served our community so well over the years,” Lagan said. “We look forward to further repairs and upgrades to maintain a safe and pleasant environment for our patients for many years to come.
“As we look to the future, we are excited to be installing new digital panels in our x-ray rooms and portable x-ray units, allowing full digital imaging for both modalities in the upcoming weeks,” she added. “We are also awaiting the delivery of our new ultrasound machine that will allow us to provide higher quality ultrasound images for our patients while expanding our ultrasound capabilities and service offering.”
"center" - Google News
August 20, 2020 at 10:00PM
https://ift.tt/3aFYoW2
Big South Fork Medical Center celebrates 3 years - Independent Herald
"center" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bUHym8
https://ift.tt/2zR6ugj
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Big South Fork Medical Center celebrates 3 years - Independent Herald"
Post a Comment