TRMC wellness center coming

The future is murky and outside funding is shaky, but Thibodaux Regional Medical Center continues to forge forward with an investment in facilities, employees and cutting-edge equipment geared toward benefiting the patient.

Thibodaux Regional CEO Greg Stock said steps taken by the hospital in 2011 were pointed toward the consumer of his product.

“It’s a commitment to patient quality,” Stock said. “The reinvestment in top-quality technology, the training and development of our staff, the facility that is, what we call, a clean, well-lighted place, the investment in better processes, better ways of doing things that result in a safer hospital and quicker, more-efficient patient care. It’s really about the patient, some of the highlights of our year.”

Thibodaux Regional, like all hospitals across the country, has faced cuts in Medicaid coverage. Enrollment and inflation in Medicaid inpatient costs increased by more than 60 percent from 1995 to 2010. At the same time, Louisiana government reimbursement decreased 9 percent. Stock said the cuts in Medicaid “took about $1.2 million off our bottom line in 2010.”

Still, the hospital has continued to expand and purchase new equipment without taking on debt.

Portrayed as a combatant to the increase in health care costs, by increasing the overall level of health in the area, Thibodaux Regional announced in February its intention to construct a 70,000-square-foot, $18 million wellness center on its campus.

The five-story facility is expected to house sports medicine programs, a fitness center, a pool, a spine center, a state-of-the-art imaging center with CT and PET scans and MRIs, and physician’s offices, among other wellness-centric programs and technologies to improve health in the area, Stock said.

Hospital officials toured wellness centers in Philadelphia, Chicago, Colorado and other places and are closing in on the overall plan, which should be finalized within 45 days. The wellness center’s design and construction should be complete within a year and a half, Stock said.

The new facility will bolster the hospital’s appearance and capabilities, but Thibodaux Regional is not without performance accolades. J.D. Power and Associates and Press Ganey Associates each returned to Thibodaux earlier this year to present hardware that recognizes the hospital’s inpatient and outpatient service.

TRMC is one of 13 general acute care hospitals to receive the Press Ganey Summit Award for inpatient care and one of 16 outpatient facilities across the country to receive the honor from the national organization that partners with nearly 2,100 and 1,400 facilities, respectively.

“The dedication by the entire Thibodaux Regional team, from senior leadership to frontline staff, truly exemplifies what patient-centered care is about,” Jeffrey Thompson, senior improvement manager with Press Ganey, said in July.

J.D. Power awarded TRMC with the Distinguished Hospital Award in inpatient service excellence for the third-straight year and complemented it with the same award in outpatient excellence for the second year in a row.

The hospital has five of the J.D. Power awards, directed by customer surveys, in its trophy case. No other Louisiana hospital has received one. “Thibodaux’s performance is the best I’ve ever seen,” John Clark, a director in J.D. Power’s healthcare division, said in March.

Stock said the honors are indicative of the hospital’s efforts to have a clean facility, policies and processes that lead to efficiency with patient care and compassion.

“The awards, in and of themselves, aren’t anything,” Stock said. “It’s what they represent, which is patients’ opinions of the care provided. At Thibodaux Regional, you’re not a number; you’re an individual and we try to treat every person in that regard.”

The hospital also made several technological and equipment purchases in the last year, including the latest version of a multi-million-dollar, low-radiation CT scanner, a system that monitors the appropriate levels of anesthesia, lab equipment that supplies quicker test results and beds (as costly as $30,000 apiece), some of which can hold patients who weigh 500 pounds.

Stock said he’s worried that Medicare and private insurers will follow the Medicaid path and cripple health care funding even further. “We can’t tell exactly where health care delivery is going to be 24 to 36 months from now.”

He said he and his staff would continue to stay abreast of the issues so that TRMC could continue running efficiently, and being singled out for doing so, into the future.

“We’re excited about the progress we’ve made, but we think we can pick it up even further,” Stock said. “There’s a pursuit of excellence in all that we do.”