Olympic Medical Center ending year in black, CEO says
Published 12:01 am Saturday, December 20, 2014
PORT ANGELES — Although red may be a Christmas color, Olympic Medical Center will have happy holidays by ending 2014 in the black.
“The fourth quarter is looking good,” CEO Eric Lewis told OMC commissioners Wednesday.
“It looks like we’re going to be at a positive for the year.”
He estimated a $900,000 positive balance after an in-the-red start to the year.
However, “there’s some whitewater ahead,” Lewis warned, for a hospital where 80 percent of patients are government-insured.
Proposals pending in Congress could cut Medicare payments to OMC by $3 million, he said.
Flu season
Dr. Scott Kennedy, chief medical and operating officer, said the influenza season has started early, as of Dec. 1, with “what’s called antigenic drift.”
That terms refers to H3N2 flu strains turning up outside what the current vaccine protects against, he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommend immunizations as the best defense against flu.
As for OMC personnel, 96 percent have been immunized — 100 percent for nursing students — and non-immunized staff must wear protective respiratory masks.
“We’re well-immunized,” Kennedy said, “early in the season” that usually picks up after travelers return from holiday visits to regions of the country where flu is more common.
Flu has been reported in Clallam and Jefferson counties over the past three weeks, said Dr. Tom Locke, public health officer for both counties.
The season usually lasts until spring.
In addition to hearing about a good fourth quarter, commissioners got more good news at their meeting, including a sixth straight quarter free from serious falls by inpatients, according to Kennedy.
“Our third quarter looked very good. This reflects the great work of nursing and therapy,” he said.
In the third quarter, two inpatients and three outpatients fell and suffered minor injuries, a total of seven inpatients and 15 outpatients since this time last year.
Two inpatients and three outpatients fell and had moderate injuries in the past 12 months, according to OMC records, and one outpatient suffered severe injuries from a fall.
In other safety news, eight workers in the hospital laundry will receive awards for not suffering any punctures for seven years from hypodermic needles that sometimes make their way into hospital bedding.
“They use eagle eyes and abundant caution,” Kennedy said.
Other actions by commissioners Wednesday included:
■ Buying for $490,000 software for the linear accelerator at the Sequim cancer center that refines radiation doses for patients.
■ Learning that 17 new doctors and other advanced medical personnel have joined OMC during 2014. Kennedy called the new employees “a superstar team,” with key recruitments in neurology, endocrinology and cardiology.
Net staff increase, however, was offset by retirements.
“We’ve added providers,” Kennedy said, but a retirement brings any change to “a net zero.”
“Everybody’s recruiting,” he said, with medical facilities like OMC especially seeking primary care physicians, physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners to meet demand by newly insured patients under the Affordable Care Act.
Additions to staff Wednesday included Dr. Michael McDonald, physician director of sleep services in Sequim, and Deborah Turner, physician’s assistant, Sequim cancer center.
■ Approving income subsidies of up to $200,000, moving allowances of $10,000, housing allowances of $12,000 and signing bonuses of $15,000 for doctors recruited to Family Medicine of Port Angeles. Three such new hires are pending, Lewis said.
Such subsidies and bonuses are common for hospitals and clinics trying to attract doctors who often enter practice up to $200,000 in debt for their educations, he said.
