The Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital has been selected to participate in a national performance program to look at ways to strengthen hospital care and financial stability among America’s small rural hospitals. The project would allow hospital officials to compare their
The Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital has been selected to participate in a national performance program to look at ways to strengthen hospital care and financial stability among America’s small rural hospitals.
The project would allow hospital officials to compare their performance against other that of other hospitals in these areas: clinical quality and safety, financial performance, patient satisfaction and staff satisfaction.
A major focus of the project is to ensure KVMH and other hospitals continue to provide quality care and remain fiscally viable.
“We want to make sure that the quality care is equally if not more important than just the financial end,” said Orianna Skomoroch, administrator at KVMH and a regional chief executive office.
Ka‘u Hospital and Kohala Hospital on the Big Island and Lanai Community Hospital also have been invited to participate in the project, which is sponsored by the state Office of Rural Health through a federal grant from the federal Office of Rural Health.
The project started last month.
KVMH and the other three Hawai‘i hospitals participating in the project are part of an 11-rural state hospital system managed by the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation. The other HHSC-managed hospital on Kaua‘i is Mahelona Hospital in Kapa‘a.
HHSC was established by the legislature in 1996 as an agency of the state. HHSC took over the running of the rural hospitals form the state Department of Health, and has the responsibility of organizing the hospitals into an integrated, efficient system.
The project that involves KVMH and the other three state hospitals uses a “balanced scoreboard framework” that stresses the importance of measuring clinical and non-clinical data, according to Skomoroch.
That portion of the project and its findings would provide “our hospital staff with a common language for performance improvement,” she said in a news release.
“By building our system around this comprehensive set of strategic goals, everyone in our hospital is pulling in the same direction,” Skomoroch said in a news release.
KVMH representatives also will solicit public comments on what can be done to help keep hospital services at a optimum level, Skomoroch said.
Since July 1, KVMH representatives have collected surveys from the public to help identify the strengths and the weaknesses of a hospital’s care delivery service.
“We are asking for the community’s support, since this is a unique opportunity to better understand and improve our local healthcare delivery system,” Skomoroch said.
A report could be available within a year, and will look “at the way we deliver services and provide quality care,” Skomoroch said.
