HOSPITAL
Regional Medical Center Specialty Clinics is located in the Tuscany Plaza, 2851 S. Avenue B, Building 20. It offers care in allergy and immunology, cardiac, endocrinology, maternal, psychiatry and rheumatology.
Trudie Milner, administrative director of orthopedic clinical service line, rehabilitation services and outpatient surgery department, calls it “one-stop shopping” for health-care services.
Some of these services — rheumatology, allergy, psychiatry — are perhaps services people wouldn’t expect to find at YRMC.
“Down the hill” from the hospital main campus at 2400 S. Avenue A is the Medical Plaza Building, 1501 W. 24th St., which houses many of the outpatient services. The YRMC Outpatient Center is located at 1320 W. 24th St. The YRMC Transitional Care Services at 2451 S. Avenue A, is located inside Kachina Medical Plaza. YRMC has many more locations.
In the past, when someone broke a bone, they typically went to the emergency room for treatment. Nowadays, they’re oftentimes treated at the clinic, where an orthopedic surgeon is always on call and can operate immediately. In 2016, the clinic treated 5,000 patients.
While not everyone is suited for outpatient treatment, it can be very appealing. Someone can undergo an operation and be gone at the end of the day.
“It’s a big satisfier for patients,” Jennifer Stanton, administrative director of clinical operations, said. “The goal is high quality care but ensure a prompt return to home.”
Without some of these services, patients would have to travel out of town multiple times. But at home, patients have family support, which is important to the healing process.
This is especially true, for example, in the treatment of cancer. Now with the YRMC Cancer Center, 2375 S. Ridgeview Drive, patients can go through the whole process without leaving town, from diagnostics to chemotherapy and/or radiation treatment. The center has medical and radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners, nurses and palliative care physicians.
YRMC also added two cardiovascular surgeons in the last few months. Before patients had to be sent out of town, now with these internationally trained doctors, they can stay here.
The hospital has state-ofthe-art heart procedures, like bypass surgery, with cardiologist and cardiovascular surgeons working together.
When someone needs post-surgery cardiac rehab, the outpatient clinic can help them with an exercise regimen and other follow-up services to help them heal from surgery.
Milner calls this a “very successful program.”
Sanchez noted when someone goes through a life-changing event they might fear that once out of the hospital they will be completely on their own. This is when the transitional care comes in.
Some patients don’t have support at home and when they don’t follow instructions, they might end up back in the hospital. To prevent this, a nurse visits at-risk patients two days after they are discharged to make sure the patient is taking their medications. Did they pick them up? Can they afford them? Do they know how to take them?
Then, nursing staff follows up with the patient by phone or, if needed, goes back to the home. Before this service, many patients ended up being readmitted. In cases when a patient returns within 30 days, the government penalizes a hospital.
YRMC has been trying to make services accessible to community members by expanding hours, adding lunchtime appointments and opening on Saturdays.
YRMC, as a not-forprofit corporation, is not just about making profits. “We have to answer to the community,” Stanton said, noting money doesn’t go into the pockets of shareholders; it goes back to the hospital.
Yuma County Hospital District No. 1 is a public agency which owns the property where YRMC sits. It leases the hospital campus to YRMC. While the district has the authority to collect taxes, no taxes have ever been collected. YRMC relies solely on patient revenues for funding.
For more information, go to www.yumaregional. org.