Sama cited the example of a volunteer firefighter taken to Northern Dutchess, the nearest hospital, after experiencing heart-attack symptoms, where paramedics hooked him up to the cardiac system. When he was transferred to VBMC, he was treated at the catheter lab in 19 minutes, as opposed to the usual hour and a half. That kind of time saving results “in much reduced mortality,” Sama said. VBMC is one of the first hospitals in the state to pilot the system.
Shifts in health care
Ready noted that new technology was changing the role of the IT staff, who previously “never thought they’d be involved in saving someone’s life.”
Two major enhancements planned in the near future are an increase of the licensed neonatal intensive-care unit from 15 beds to 20, with a threefold increase in square footage, and construction of a new, expanded Center for Emergency Medicine, starting at the end of 2014. Ready said seven out of ten people from Dutchess County seeking emergency care come to VBMC, making it the busiest ED in the Hudson Valley.
Rob Dyson, chair of the HealthQuest board of directors, briefly took the podium to sum up the achievements and provide historical perspective. “We’re at a crossroads in health care,” he said. “Once in a generation, there’s an opportunity to reinvent the way we provide health care in the Hudson Valley. At VBMC we intend to capture that opportunity.
“Massive lengths of stay have been cut in half, and people are more responsive to treatment,” he continued. “At our ambulatory care center, people are in and out in one day for surgery, compared to stays as long as a week in the past. These quality programs are recognized by other hospitals, which on an increasing basis are sending their patients to us. Vassar Brothers must be the hospital that can provide care for the entire region, and it will.”
The hospital’s increasing number of partnerships, Ready noted, were a response to the huge shift in healthcare delivery, in which “more and more care is being delivered at the community level.” Hudson River Health Care, an ambulatory care center, will soon be operating a clinic at VBMC. The hospital will also be patterning with Go Before you Show, a program geared to helping pregnant women get prenatal care.
Ready was unsure how Obamacare would affect the hospital. Overall, the types of services reimbursed by Medicare are declining, she noted. For example, in the past a patient with congestive heart disease who needed to be re-admitted would be covered. Today certain criteria work against that admission. The patient would be classified as “observational,” which is not reimbursed by the federal government. “Hospitals are getting paid less money which is resulting in a higher exposure for patients,” she said. Such shifts have also “affected the financial performance of our hospital and others.”
