As hospitals across the nation continue the hard fight against hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), one of the Center for Disease Control’s “winnable battles,” or public health priorities, Riverside Doctors’ Hospital Williamsburg boasts of a statistic as it celebrates its four-year anniversary this month: no surgical-site infections and no blood-stream-associated infections.
That’s one achievement the hospital touts as it celebrates its four-year anniversary this month.
“It’s been a very great journey for us,” said Arlene Messina, nurse executive of patient care operations. “We’re community-involved and community-based.”
The hospital was established to cater to Williamsburg’s sizeable retiree population, and for that reason, stroke care has always been a priority.
For the past three years, the facility has been recognized as a primary stroke center by the Joint Commission, a non-profit accrediting agency. It is also focusing on stroke prevention.
“What we want to work on is community awareness of stroke,” Messina said. “We see too much delay of patients coming in too late. Time matters so much,” she added, in determining the severity of a stroke.
Special features at Riverside
The hospital was also designed with the elderly’s sensitivities in mind, Messina said. That means calming colors on the walls, floors that are both light and dark—instead of long stretches of monotonous floors, benches in the hallways and soft lighting in patient rooms.
The hospital has more than fifty physicians on staff, and top-growth departments include orthopedics, cardiology, urology, oncology and gynecology, https://urologyvideovisit.com/cialis-tadalafil. They’ve also seen steady patient growth.
In 2016, there were 8,589 inpatient and outpatient discharges, compared to 8,490 in 2015. In 2016, there were 18,151 emergency department visits, compared to 17,581 in 2015. Meanwhile, length of patient stays is decreasing.
Another area of growth for the hospital is in mental health patients. Riverside opened Williamsburg’s first crisis intervention team assessment center in 2014. The state-funded program, called the Crisis Intervention Team Assessment Center, or CITAC, allows law enforcement officers to bring people to emergency departments for psychiatric evaluations.
The set-up is a win-win for law enforcement and health providers, since officers can go back to their own duties, while mental health experts determine whether people need to be admitted to psychiatric institutions, said. Dr. James McCorry, the medical director at Riverside.
The Crisis Intervention Team Assessment Center is now the fourth busiest assessment center in Virginia, and they’ve seen a 20 percent yearly growth rate in patients, he added.
Another bonus of the program?
“We put back close to $20,000 in law enforcement time versus them being paid to babysit someone in the ER,” McCorry said. “It’s a great partnership between the community service board and law enforcement.”
