“It has been another busy year for SVHC,” President and CEO Thomas Dee told nearly 70 area residents who attended the annual briefing. “We were fortunate that things have gone well. A lot of initiatives are going on.”
Dee said SVHC has created its Vision 2020, “which is really our road map for the next five years.” He said that plan is built on “partnership and transformation and sustainability.”
Initiatives include expanding Southwestern Vermont Medical Center’s largest partnership, with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and health system, based in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Agreements have included making the 120-member local medical staff part of the staff of the larger health care organization. “We think that has been a great relationship,” Dee said.
Examples of more recent agreements, he said, include establishing telemedicine services within the neurology and emergency departments, with physicians working jointly on diagnosis and patient care with physicians at Dartmouth-Hitchcock using communications technology.
As for plans to fully merge with Dartmouth-Hitchcock, which has been discussed, Dee said those talks have been on hold pending appointment of a new CEO at Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
“We haven’t been able yet to fully consummate our relationship with Dartmouth, even though we are doing many initiatives, and initiatives continue to roll forward. We’re still waiting to complete our overall organizational affiliation,” he said.
One reason, Dee said, is that “Dartmouth hit a little speed bump last year. They had some financial problems. They have actually had some major changes in leadership.”
The new Dartmouth-Hitchcock CEO is expected to be named within the next six weeks, he said, “and once that announcement is made, we will get back on the track of trying to get to the finish line for our affiliation. So stay tuned on that one.”
But telemedicine opportunities have and are opening up at SVMC, he said, including for stroke patients and emergency department patients. In September, he said, SVMC’s Intensive Care Unit will be similarly linked to Dartmouth-Hitchcock, allowing physicians to work collaboratively.
That will include allowing 24-hour monitoring by board-certified critical care physicians at Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
“The whole telemedicine initiative is going to be a game-changer as we go down the road with Dartmouth,” Dee said.
Other ongoing initiatives at SVHC include moves this year into New York state, where many of the system’s patients live. That includes a recent partnership with a primary care practice in Hoosick Falls, New York, to form Twin Rivers Medical Center, and plans to take over operation of the 82-bed Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in the village. That latter initiative should come to fruition soon, Dee said.
In the Northshire in Bennington County, an express care satellite operation is planned, Dee said, adding that an express care service on the hospital campus has been treating about 45 patients a day. The satellite service could be a model for others in the region, he said, and could one day be linked via telemedicine to Dartmouth-Hitchcock.
Dr. Jonathan Cluett, who also spoke at the event, detailed the reorganization and expansion this year of SVMC Orthopedics, located in a building near the hospital that is undergoing a major renovation project. Three surgeons were added to the group, which now includes four physicians and other care providers and staff. Cluett said the orthopedic group also has established a satellite presence in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
An open house event at the Bennington orthopedics facility is planned for late June, he said.
In answer to questions from residents, Dee said he isn’t worried the hospital could lose “its small-town hospital” feel.
He said the hospital has actually been expanding into smaller towns, including Pownal, Manchester and Hoosick Falls, while working with Dartmouth-Hitchcock to take advantage of advanced medical services and physician training and expertise that a hospital of SVMC’s size could not afford on its own.
“For instance, we could never afford telemedicine,” he said. “Never.”
Expansion of the emergency department at SVMC “is probably our top priority,” Dee said, adding that he hopes an application can be submitted to the state by the end of 2017 for such a project. He said the emergency department was built to serve 15,000 patients but “we see 25,000.”
An expansion of operating facilities also is one of the top goals for SVMC, he said.
Dee said he shares the concerns of many in the field concerning the Trump administration’s proposed $800 million budget cut to the Medicaid program. He said the program has expanded significantly in Vermont, “and those types of reductions would be very significant to us, and it would put us in a very tough position.”
Dee also noted that the hospital has received recognition for quality of care and hospital safety, sometimes over a number of years.
Those include a fourth Magnet Hospital designation from the American Nurses’ Credentialing Center for nursing excellence.
“That is really quite remarkable for this size organization,” Dee said. The designation is awarded every four years, he said, and SVMC has held it for the past 16 years, currently one of three hospitals in New England and 31 in the nation.
An SVMC nurse, Barbara Richardson, received one of five national nursing excellence awards, he said.
SVMC was designated by the Leapfrog Group, which promotes hospital safety, with an A rating for the second straight year, Dee said.
Consumer Reports magazine ranked SVMC highest in Vermont and third in New England, while ranking some 2,500 hospitals nationally.
Vermont Business Magazine and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce have named SVHC one of the best places to work in Vermont.
