Western Baptist Hospital: Small Town, Big City Medicine
Hospitals
Written by Eric Slack   
Sunday, 01 November 2009
Western Baptist Hospital: Small Town, Big City Medicine
Through the support of its community and an organization-wide commitment to excellence, this Western Kentucky hospital has become the best in the region.


Premier Business Partners:

Quest Diagnostics
Located in a small city in Kentucky’s rural west, Western Baptist Hospital has been a leader in bringing world-class healthcare to the area for more than half a century. This quest continues for the organization, which has committed to a course that has made it the preferred provider in the region.

“We have a small town atmosphere, but we practice big city medicine,” said Larry Barton, president and CEO. “Our focus is primarily on the human side of providing care because services are delivered by people, but we also focus on ensuring people have access to the latest medical technologies.”

Western Baptist Hospital is part of Kentucky’s six-hospital Baptist Healthcare System. It is the second oldest hospital in the system, having opened its doors in 1953. Located in Paducah, the hospital is in the western part of the state, serving not only residents of Kentucky but also the Southern Illinois and Northern Tennessee markets.

Western Baptist Hospital: Small Town, Big City Medicine
Larry Barton, president and CEO
It has a comprehensive array of services, including open heart surgery. It was the first Kentucky hospital west of Louisville to have an open heart program. Cancer care, obstetrics, and women’s and children’s services are also major pieces of the hospital’s portfolio.

Each of the hospitals in the Baptist Healthcare System operates somewhat autonomously, with a local board that operates much the same way a community hospital board would. This certainly makes sense for Western Baptist, which is 230 miles from the system’s corporate headquarters in Louisville. However, as part of the Baptist Healthcare System, Western Baptist has access to shared information systems, it is part of one obligated group when approaching the bond market, and some its local board members serve on the system’s corporate board, which approves medical staff decisions and major capital expenditures.

Long-term support
Part of the hospital’s successful growth and longevity comes from the support it has received from the people within its primary services area, which dates back to its beginning. People in and around Paducah had been pushing for a hospital in the area dating back to the late 1940s. Construction began in 1948, but due to difficulties in financing the project, it wasn’t completed until 1952, opening its doors one year later. Since that time, it has solidified its place as a cherished regional institution.

This is evident in several ways. First, it is a respected employer. Many employees have been with the hospital for decades, including one that’s been on board for 42 years. That kind of staff longevity happens only when an employer is committed to its employees.

“The hospital continuously emphasizes that commitment as part of our culture, and it has carried over to the way we treat our patients and their families,” said Barton. “We’ve been able to keep improving and stand out as the best in the region. A lot of hard work goes into ensuring high levels of patient satisfaction, and independent surveys have shown that we are the preferred provider in our area by a two-to-one margin.”

That commitment to employees is also on display in the methods Western Baptist uses to help its employees take the next step in their careers, especially in nursing. Even during tough economic times, the hospital has avoided making nursing cuts. “If we as an organization have to find savings, we find them some other than patient care. We can’t compromise service quality,” Barton said.

The hospital has relationships with nursing programs at a local two-year community college, Murray State University, and Southern Illinois University’s Carbondale campus. The hospital serves as a clinical training ground and often hires nurses directly from these programs. In fact, Barton said there are times of the year when Western Baptists may over-hire nurses beyond what its budget calls for.

“We know attrition in nursing takes place in the spring, which is one of our busiest times of the year, and we don’t want to be shorthanded then,” he said. “It has worked well for us, as we’ve never used agency nurses here.”

Additionally, Western Baptist provides continuing education and tuition assistance for employees. Its education department oversees internal training programs, much of which is directed toward computer training as the organization becomes more and more paperless.

Another illustration of the community support Western Baptist receives is the donations made to the hospital, especially in recent years. Barton said Western Baptist has received several significant gifts this decade. These include gifts left by family estates of $900,000 and $6 million. Barton said that is indicative of the pride people of the area feel for the hospital and how satisfied the community has been with the programs and services the hospital has provided.

Expanding services
Targeted investments are helping Western Baptist keep its place as the provider of choice in the region. It recently opened the Baptist Heart Center on its campus, a free-standing, 79,000-square-foot, $20 million heart center designed to take its already renowned heart services to the next level with a state-of-the-art facility. It was built with enough space for the hospital to expand its programs as technology evolves.

Imaging is another area where Western Baptist has been focusing its attention. It has a free-standing imaging center on its campus, and the hospital recently received approval to begin a significant expansion of the facility. That will allow for the addition of new PET/CT, MRI, and women’s imaging services.

Beyond that, Western Baptist brought in the robotic da Vinci Surgical System last summer, the first in Western Kentucky. Barton said it has been such a success and is so busy that growth in volume could eventually require a second robot.

With all the unknowns surrounding healthcare reform and what it will do to the hospital’s ability to grow, like all healthcare organizations, many of Western Baptist’s decisions will be driven based on what comes out of Washington. But whatever comes of the deliberations in the nation’s capital, Barton was clear that the hospital would focus on its efforts as a referral center, getting outside its walls and working with smaller regional smaller hospitals.

“We are doing that in many ways, having developed information links with many of them through their EDs,” he said. “We just started a referral system through our 24-hour nurse-call system, expanding that to include our allied hospitals so they can get patients into our hospitals easier. That has been a plus for both sides and smoothes the transition from a rural hospital into our programs and services.”
 
< Prev   Next >