Mission Hospital McDowell provides expansive, exemplary acute care services
In my monthly column, I often highlight services and protocols we have at Mission Hospital McDowell (MHM) — from stroke care to labor and delivery services to how we keep our patients safe, and our team members connected. This is because it’s important for community members to be aware of the excellent care that is available to them, close to home.
This month, I’d like to highlight our exceptional acute care services. These are the vast array of services we offer to inpatients, or those who are receiving care in the hospital — whether for a single night, weeks, or months.
A person may receive acute care for many reasons. They might be here for treatment addressing a health emergency, like a workplace injury or an emergent condition such as a heart attack or stroke. Expectant mothers also receive acute care, as do people coming for scheduled surgery, like a knee replacement or appendectomy.
MHM is a 35-bed hospital that is also equipped with six additional state-of-the-art labor and delivery suites, so we’re prepared to provide acute treatment to patients needing a very broad range of care.
As part of HCA Healthcare, we are dedicated to living up to the mission of being “committed to the care and improvement of human life” by delivering high-quality, cost-effective healthcare to our community members. I am also proud that our scores are consistently high from patient surveys conducted and overseen by Press Ganey, a firm that evaluates and studies patients’ thoughts about their hospital experiences. This in turn helps us in our quest for continuous improvement, whether that’s around patient safety, care delivery, communication between providers and patients, or any of the many other factors that impact a patient’s hospital stay.
In order to provide extraordinary care to our inpatients, our teams need to include both generalists and those with a wide range of specialty areas of expertise, since we provide services to patients and perform procedures that include general surgery, orthopedic care, cardiology care, obstetrics and gynecology, podiatry, gastrointestinal surgery, and more.
For example, a provider may be asked to create a care plan and treat a patient who is recovering from a heart attack in one room, while the patient next door may be awaiting knee replacement surgery, and the one next to them might be receiving treatment for a burn or injuries sustained in a car accident, and so on.
Providers like physicians, nurses, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists, and patient care technicians must also be able to pivot quickly as they move from caring for one patient to another, since the care patients receive on any given day is so varied. Our rehabilitation services are also crucial to acute care services, and this team consists of experienced physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists, while our hospitalists coordinate and manage a patient’s care throughout their entire stay.
Since nutrition is key for all patients, our dietary services team members and our dieticians are essential to supporting every patient’s experience and healing.
There are also team members who are highly involved with acute care, but they don’t provide direct patient care. These include nurse managers, radiologists, pharmacy staff, and laboratory staff.
The essential skills needed for every healthcare professional involved with providing any type of acute care services to patients include the ability to communicate clearly and well with fellow team members and patients and their families, work smartly and efficiently, and maintain a constant focus on keeping patients safe. Patient safety encompasses everything from anticipating hazards like falls and preventing infection to understanding and implementing hospital safety protocols for emergencies.
In addition to the dedicated people who make MHM what it is, our hospital’s thoughtful design also reflects an emphasis on patients’ and families’ needs. This goal is met because the hospital is equipped with sensitively designed patient rooms, the most advanced medical technology, well-thought-out hospital visitation policies, and streamlined procedures, such as the patient registration and discharge processes.
It is the goal of each MHM team member to create a patient-centered experience for any community member needing acute care services. We strive to provide expert, compassionately delivered acute care and are committed to building trust with our patients through competence, empathy, and respect.
Lee Higginbotham is Chief Executive Officer of Mission Hospital McDowell in Marion. He is an accomplished healthcare leader with nearly three decades of diverse experience in healthcare. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia, Higginbotham earned his Master of Health Care Administration (MHA) from The Medical College of Virginia and is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. He resides in Marion. Lee is most proud to be a husband to his best friend and father of three remarkable children.