March Hospital Update

An update from Teri Theiler, President - North Region, Aspirus Health

Urgent Care and the Emergency Department

Urgent Care is doing very well since opening in May. Even in the off season they are continuing to see very strong volumes. They hired a new supervisor in the Emergency Department and are very excited about the energy she will bring to the team. Having someone dedicated to the leadership in the Emergency room and Urgent Care will help them focus on connecting patients to primary care providers.

Primary Care

The Primary Care Clinic combined in December and is doing very well. They have seen a nice boost in their ancillary services with the addition of the primary care providers in the new clinic. Dr. Larson and Alexis Roy, NP, both have a lot of capacity, and they are working with marketing to boost community awareness.

Opportunities for Specialty Care

General Surgery
A big opportunity is the OR and trying to grow those volumes. Dr. Osterbrink is slowly getting more traction on surgeries, but it will take a little more time to build this up. Will have to work with primary care to get more referrals.

Orthopedics
Aspirus committed to a new program called Synergy, which is all on call orthopedics that covers 24/7. This will do a couple of things - it will allow their current orthopedic surgeons to do more outreach and grow those services at HYMC and will allow them to recruit. It is very difficult to recruit into a practice that has a lot of call in a smaller market, and this will allow them to cast a wider net.

Cardiology

Outpatient cardiology has continued to grow. Dr. Zevitz has added an additional day every other week in addition to the other cardiologists that are rotating through. They need to look at what they can do to increase their imaging capacity. They are looking at creative ways to recruit for those positions that will grow imaging services at the hospital.