Hospital awarded for suicide prevention program
CEO discusses state of hospital, future of pandemic
The New Mexico Hospital Association has awarded Holy Cross Medical Center its Quest for Excellence Quality Award, which is given to facilities that display exceptional efforts to improve hospital quality and patient care for the people of New Mexico. It represents the highest level of professional acknowledgement from New Mexico’s Quality Committee and members.
“This award highlights our fantastic team, and I want to recognize and thank all the Holy Cross employees and medical staff who provide high quality, friendly service. We are honored to receive this prestigious award,” Bill Patten, chief executive officer of Holy Cross Medical Center, said in a prepared statement.
While many hospitals submitted a variety of projects related to the COVID-19 pandemic for consideration to receive the award, Patten chose to focus attention on the work Holy Cross has been conducting to help patients who are exhibiting thoughts of suicide.
Over the last year, Sarah Beane, the nursing director of the hospitals Med-Surg. and Acute Care Unit, worked with three emergency room nurses to develop a process that provides better care for patients with suicidal ideation in the Emergency Department.
They did this by improving the screening process and identifying suicidal patients. The staff also worked on getting patients additional resources, and improved how they are cared for them while in the emergency department. Patten called it a “very holistic approach.”
“How do we involve the physicians? How do we document the care that we’re providing? There was a very complete look at how we could improve our care of patients considering suicide,” Patten said.
Beane, who also worked on this aspect of patient care as part of her masters degree, has since been promoted to director of patient care services. She now oversees the Med-Surg and Intensive Care Unit.
“How can we do things better?” Patten said he believes that his and his staff’s willingness to ask that question of themselves is part of what led to the prestigious honor. “Our Lifewings Quality and Safety Council embraces a concept that we call, ‘see it, say it, fix it,’ where we empower our employees to say, ‘Wait a minute, something’s not right here.’ We then are committed to fixing it.”
More broadly speaking, he said, the award spoke directly to the hospital’s “overall culture of wanting to be a progressive organization that is continually focused on getting better.”
The Taos News this week asked Patten more questions – about the state of the hospital and the future of health care in Taos County as the pandemic continues.
Many hospitals and health care facilities have been experiencing nursing and staff shortages. How has that affected Holy Cross?
We have staffing shortages as well. We are very reliant on temporary nurses, “travelers” they’re called. We are actively working to recruit permanent nurses and are making slow but steady progress. As of (Tuesday, Oct. 19), knock on wood, we have not had to close or limit to service because of a nursing shortage. Our nursing leadership has stepped up and worked night shifts in order to assure that we
On Monday (Oct. 18), the state Department of Health enacted Crisis Standards of Care, said to last through Nov. 12. What does that mean for Holy Cross?
We don’t know exactly what that means. They’re supposed to be providing additional information today or tomorrow (Oct. 19-20). We will be having our own meeting looking at that, but the question will be whether or not we need to restrict certain elective procedures, specifically, surgeries, in order to move nurses from the surgical department into other areas. On the face of it, that sounds good. (More details can be found at bit. ly/3G9CLNs).
There has also been some concern about whether Intensive Care Unit beds are available.
That has been a curious phenomenon that is very different from what we saw October through December (2020). So, last year our intensive care numbers were predominantly related to COVID. That’s not the case anymore, so I looked at our census from yesterday (Oct. 20) before this call and we had four patients on Med-Surg that have a COVID diagnosis and two patients in the intensive care department that had a COVID diagnosis. None of them were on ventilators.
So, what we are seeing thats different from last year is a high number of what has been called “traditional” sick people. So, some people have said COVID is tipping us over the edge, but it is very different from what we saw last year. The challenge we’ve seen, different from last year, was our ability to transfer patients.
Last year, when we got a very sick patient, whether from COVID, cardiac or whatever the case may be, our ability to transfer them worked pretty well. But, right now, the ICUs at the larger facilities — Christus St. Vincent in Santa Fe; University of New Mexico, Presbyterian, Lovelace in Albuquerque — have very full intensive care units and are very selective about the patients that they will accept. We actually believe we are taking care of a higher acuity of patients during this cycle of the pandemic than we were a year ago.
Where are we in the pandemic? Are we nearing the end?
The research I have seen says that the current round of the Delta Variant should pretty much play out, I’ve heard, by early November or late November. I’m not sure I would be that optimistic. What I have been telling my team is that I think we need to plan for our numbers to continue to be a little bit elevated at least through the first of the year. It will be curious to see how the regular flu season factors into this, because the symptoms of the regular flu are similar to COVID. So, it will be curious to see how one disease affects the other, and the overall impact it has on the healthcare system. So, from my point of view, I am hoping to see light at the end of the tunnel in January.