As the regional area grows and healthcare advances, Pullman Regional Hospital looks to future services and care.
Scott Adams, Chief Executive Officer, shares details on the Next Era of Excellence.
Selected Podcast
The Next Era of Excellence at Pullman Regional Hospital
Featuring:
Scott Adams
Scott Adams, CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital, has led this 5 star, critical access hospital for more than 20 years. Adams has been widely recognized for his progressive leadership and responsiveness to the healthcare needs of the region. He is the recipient of the 2014 Joe Hopkins Memorial Award for Outstanding Leadership by the Washington State Hospital Association and was named Outstanding Healthcare Executive by Seattle Business magazine in 2009. Transcription:
Bill Klaproth (Host): At the same time healthcare is changing, so is the growth of the Pullman Region and the needs of the community. Here to talk with us about those changes and Pullman Regional Hospital’s Next Era of Excellence Initiative is Scott Adams, CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital. Scott, thank you so much for your time. It seems healthcare is transforming from a model of curing the sick to a model of keeping well. Is that correct?
Scott Adams (Guest): I think that’s a very accurate reflection of how healthcare in America is changing today. For decades, American healthcare has developed a reputation of being the best in the world for fixing you when you’re broken, but we haven’t done as well of paying attention to things that might help you from becoming ill or reduce the impact of illness on you through more wellness and prevention activities. It’s become a much bigger focus for the American healthcare system today.
Host: Right, and with those changes in mind, growth in the region is happening at an impressive rate with estimates of 50% growth over the next 20 years. That means meeting the healthcare needs of today, right, but also adapting to the needs of the next generation to come. Is that right? That’s kind of the situation you’re in.
Scott: Certainly, that’s one of the dynamics that has been factored into our planning and looking to the future for how we can continue to meet the needs of the community — not only growth in general, but growth in certain segments of the population. Certainly, nationwide the elderly cohort of our society is growing faster than other segments of the population, and so coming to understand their unique needs, being able to provide services in a more comprehensive, convenient, and efficient way is starting to have a bearing on not only those in that older cohort, but people at a younger age are looking for those same types of services. They want to know that they can receive care and have it be integrated and coordinated in a way that is more efficient for the demands on their time and the other commitments that they have in their lives.
Host: Absolutely. And I know you have a plan to adapt to these changes. Can you tell us about the Next Era of Excellence Initiative?
Scott: The Next Era of Excellence is a vision that we’ve been developing for the last several years of how we can see the strengths of Pullman Regional Hospital and the opportunities in our community to expand and reshape how healthcare is provided and how patients experience their healthcare delivery services. Bringing together and aggregating as many healthcare services in a single location and bringing in technology such as electronic medical records, but creating a community-wide electronic medical record with a centralized repository of information so that everyone in the community’s information is accessible anywhere you get care.
One of the challenges in American healthcare today is that people generally experience their care in a fragmented way. They have to figure out how to put all of those pieces together. Part of that fragmentation is exacerbated by the siloed approach that our health information has developed over the years. How can we bring that back together so that if you see your doctor in the Emergency Department and then you go see a specialist as a follow-up, they both have access to whatever your health status is so that they can be coordinated and integrated in providing you a more complete picture of what the next steps are that you need to take. We see it as drawing on the capabilities that we’ve developed up until now and expanding them and reshaping the experience so that it’s more efficient, more comprehensive, more guided, and more convenient.
Host: To that end, Scott, talking about coordinated and integrated care, this provides for a one-stop-shop experience by housing as many medical services in one location. Can you tell us more about that?
Scott: Yeah, that’s a big part of it. There’s a lot of infrastructure that needs to go along with that. The community health pavilion, as we describe it, is a 45,000 square-foot new space that would be on the hospital campus that would be connected to the hospital so that all the existing services, and physicians, and care providers that are here now would be connected to this new space. It would all be integrated so that new providers, and new services, and new therapists, and new consultants can be added to the medical community and would all be integrated not only by proximity of space and opportunities for immediate interactions and consults, but electronically, as I was mentioning earlier about that centralized electronic health record where all of that information would be shareable and accessible amongst providers. Each patient would have a more comprehensive aspect of their care experience because it’s not divided into little chunks as we experience today. That additional space is a key infrastructure component about reshaping how patients will experience their care in the Pullman community.
Host: A 45,000 square-foot pavilion, and this would be adjacent to the current hospital right now? Is that right?
Scott: Correct, yeah. It would be right next to it and connected so that it’s the entire facility patients would experience under a single roof. You wouldn’t be going in and out of buildings to get to various services.
Host: Well, it’s a great plan. Do you have any kind of a timeline for this right now?
Scott: We’re pursuing a plan that is going to help us continue to build our very unique partnership we have with our community. They have been supportive over many, many years. Nearly 20 years ago, they helped fund the construction of the new hospital that we now function out of. We’re going to be turning to them for a significant portion of the funding for the Next Era of Excellence. That would all transpire and be decided in April of 2019. If that is approved by the community as a tax proposal to help fund the Next Era of Excellence then we would see ourselves moving into designing and implementing the centralized electronic medical record, beginning to design the new pavilion space, and organize it, and begin construction.
It would probably be — we wouldn’t see implementation of the health record until 2020, and probably wouldn’t start construction on the pavilion until 2021, which would mean that probably it would be closer to 2022, perhaps even 2023 before the space would even be completed. At the same time, the electronic record implementation would continue forward and begin to expand into the community beyond just the hospital and physician practice. It’s got a four or five year time horizon before everything will be put in place and up to operating effectively.
Host: And Scott, you were just talking about funding. Is there anything else the community needs to know about that?
Scott: I think it’s important — we feel so fortunate because of the support we’ve had from the community over the years, so presenting a proposal for them to consider approving of a tax bond for $29 million is a key funding portion. The overall project is $40 million to bring this Next Era of Excellence into full fruition, and that $29 million is an essential funding portion which would be a presentation to the community of a possible bond issue for taxes in April of 2019.
Host: And if you could wrap it up for us, Scott, is there anything else we should know about the Next Era of Excellence at Pullman Regional Hospital?
Scott: We’ve had a chance to reach out to the community as we prepared this plan, and this past summer we’ve had several interactions through formal surveys, and one-on-one meetings, and community gatherings, and there is enthusiasm for this plan. We’re excited to be able to present a pathway force to move forward with it through funding and a timeline to accomplish these things. We’re excited about it. We look forward to the continued support of the community as we present them with the opportunity to participate. Anybody that would like more information about the Next Era of Excellence can go to the hospital’s website at PullmanRegional.org. And then there’s a button there that you can click on, the Next Era of Excellence. You can also sign up for a newsletter related to the Next Era of Excellence for more information.
Host: Well, it is very exciting. Scott Adams, CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital. Scott, thank you so much for your time today. For more information, please visit PullmanRegional.org, that’s PullmanRegional.org. This is the Health Podcast from Pullman Regional. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth (Host): At the same time healthcare is changing, so is the growth of the Pullman Region and the needs of the community. Here to talk with us about those changes and Pullman Regional Hospital’s Next Era of Excellence Initiative is Scott Adams, CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital. Scott, thank you so much for your time. It seems healthcare is transforming from a model of curing the sick to a model of keeping well. Is that correct?
Scott Adams (Guest): I think that’s a very accurate reflection of how healthcare in America is changing today. For decades, American healthcare has developed a reputation of being the best in the world for fixing you when you’re broken, but we haven’t done as well of paying attention to things that might help you from becoming ill or reduce the impact of illness on you through more wellness and prevention activities. It’s become a much bigger focus for the American healthcare system today.
Host: Right, and with those changes in mind, growth in the region is happening at an impressive rate with estimates of 50% growth over the next 20 years. That means meeting the healthcare needs of today, right, but also adapting to the needs of the next generation to come. Is that right? That’s kind of the situation you’re in.
Scott: Certainly, that’s one of the dynamics that has been factored into our planning and looking to the future for how we can continue to meet the needs of the community — not only growth in general, but growth in certain segments of the population. Certainly, nationwide the elderly cohort of our society is growing faster than other segments of the population, and so coming to understand their unique needs, being able to provide services in a more comprehensive, convenient, and efficient way is starting to have a bearing on not only those in that older cohort, but people at a younger age are looking for those same types of services. They want to know that they can receive care and have it be integrated and coordinated in a way that is more efficient for the demands on their time and the other commitments that they have in their lives.
Host: Absolutely. And I know you have a plan to adapt to these changes. Can you tell us about the Next Era of Excellence Initiative?
Scott: The Next Era of Excellence is a vision that we’ve been developing for the last several years of how we can see the strengths of Pullman Regional Hospital and the opportunities in our community to expand and reshape how healthcare is provided and how patients experience their healthcare delivery services. Bringing together and aggregating as many healthcare services in a single location and bringing in technology such as electronic medical records, but creating a community-wide electronic medical record with a centralized repository of information so that everyone in the community’s information is accessible anywhere you get care.
One of the challenges in American healthcare today is that people generally experience their care in a fragmented way. They have to figure out how to put all of those pieces together. Part of that fragmentation is exacerbated by the siloed approach that our health information has developed over the years. How can we bring that back together so that if you see your doctor in the Emergency Department and then you go see a specialist as a follow-up, they both have access to whatever your health status is so that they can be coordinated and integrated in providing you a more complete picture of what the next steps are that you need to take. We see it as drawing on the capabilities that we’ve developed up until now and expanding them and reshaping the experience so that it’s more efficient, more comprehensive, more guided, and more convenient.
Host: To that end, Scott, talking about coordinated and integrated care, this provides for a one-stop-shop experience by housing as many medical services in one location. Can you tell us more about that?
Scott: Yeah, that’s a big part of it. There’s a lot of infrastructure that needs to go along with that. The community health pavilion, as we describe it, is a 45,000 square-foot new space that would be on the hospital campus that would be connected to the hospital so that all the existing services, and physicians, and care providers that are here now would be connected to this new space. It would all be integrated so that new providers, and new services, and new therapists, and new consultants can be added to the medical community and would all be integrated not only by proximity of space and opportunities for immediate interactions and consults, but electronically, as I was mentioning earlier about that centralized electronic health record where all of that information would be shareable and accessible amongst providers. Each patient would have a more comprehensive aspect of their care experience because it’s not divided into little chunks as we experience today. That additional space is a key infrastructure component about reshaping how patients will experience their care in the Pullman community.
Host: A 45,000 square-foot pavilion, and this would be adjacent to the current hospital right now? Is that right?
Scott: Correct, yeah. It would be right next to it and connected so that it’s the entire facility patients would experience under a single roof. You wouldn’t be going in and out of buildings to get to various services.
Host: Well, it’s a great plan. Do you have any kind of a timeline for this right now?
Scott: We’re pursuing a plan that is going to help us continue to build our very unique partnership we have with our community. They have been supportive over many, many years. Nearly 20 years ago, they helped fund the construction of the new hospital that we now function out of. We’re going to be turning to them for a significant portion of the funding for the Next Era of Excellence. That would all transpire and be decided in April of 2019. If that is approved by the community as a tax proposal to help fund the Next Era of Excellence then we would see ourselves moving into designing and implementing the centralized electronic medical record, beginning to design the new pavilion space, and organize it, and begin construction.
It would probably be — we wouldn’t see implementation of the health record until 2020, and probably wouldn’t start construction on the pavilion until 2021, which would mean that probably it would be closer to 2022, perhaps even 2023 before the space would even be completed. At the same time, the electronic record implementation would continue forward and begin to expand into the community beyond just the hospital and physician practice. It’s got a four or five year time horizon before everything will be put in place and up to operating effectively.
Host: And Scott, you were just talking about funding. Is there anything else the community needs to know about that?
Scott: I think it’s important — we feel so fortunate because of the support we’ve had from the community over the years, so presenting a proposal for them to consider approving of a tax bond for $29 million is a key funding portion. The overall project is $40 million to bring this Next Era of Excellence into full fruition, and that $29 million is an essential funding portion which would be a presentation to the community of a possible bond issue for taxes in April of 2019.
Host: And if you could wrap it up for us, Scott, is there anything else we should know about the Next Era of Excellence at Pullman Regional Hospital?
Scott: We’ve had a chance to reach out to the community as we prepared this plan, and this past summer we’ve had several interactions through formal surveys, and one-on-one meetings, and community gatherings, and there is enthusiasm for this plan. We’re excited to be able to present a pathway force to move forward with it through funding and a timeline to accomplish these things. We’re excited about it. We look forward to the continued support of the community as we present them with the opportunity to participate. Anybody that would like more information about the Next Era of Excellence can go to the hospital’s website at PullmanRegional.org. And then there’s a button there that you can click on, the Next Era of Excellence. You can also sign up for a newsletter related to the Next Era of Excellence for more information.
Host: Well, it is very exciting. Scott Adams, CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital. Scott, thank you so much for your time today. For more information, please visit PullmanRegional.org, that’s PullmanRegional.org. This is the Health Podcast from Pullman Regional. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.