Hammond Clinic: On the Border
Corporate Spotlight
Written by Eric Slack   
Thursday, 31 January 2008
Hammond Clinic: On the Border - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Beverly DeLao tells us how this physician-owned facility made a name for itself on the Indiana-Illinois line.

Fifty years ago, half a dozen physicians in Hammond, Ind. decided to combine their practices to increase the quality of care in the area. Half a century later, the Hammond Clinic still operates on that same principle of cooperation and quality.

Hammond Clinic: On the Border - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Beverly DeLao, Administrator
“Over the years we have grown because of the recognition of the advantage of multi-specialty care,” said Beverly DeLao, Hammond Clinic’s administrator since 2005. She has been with the clinic since 1981. “We also got in on the ground floor of some of the capitated managed care plans in the area, so we had the patient base to be able to attract PCPs and specialists who could help us meet that demand.”

After moving to its current location in Munster in 1961, Hammond Clinic didn’t change all that much until the population around it began to grow. In 1985, the clinic constructed a three-story addition to its main facility. Then, in 1994, it opened a facility in St. John and added a family wellness center in Munster in 1999. It now has a staff of almost 500 and offers a full array of 22 different specialties from audiology and cancer care to a full service radiology department and urology.

The clinic is 100% physician-owned and operated and is the largest private physician-owned clinic in Indiana. DeLao believes the advantage to the clinic is that its directors know what physicians and patients need because of their own background in medicine.

“We understand how physicians like to work and the importance of providing good care to the patients,” DeLao said. “I feel I’ve been lucky to work with a group of physicians in a management capacity who feel that taking good care of the patients, providing a good place for physicians and employees to work is as important, if not more important, than the percentage of profit for the year.”

Above average
It is crucial for Hammond Clinic to create a distinction between itself and other providers because with the increase in population has come an increase in competition. Hammond Clinic is in the northwest corner of Indiana and is much closer to Chicago than to Indianapolis. Without its status as a full service provider or the dedication of its physician-owners, the clinic could easily lose patients to nearby community hospitals or the large providers in the Windy City.

To prevent this, the clinic has invested heavily in service and facility upgrades in recent years. Last August, Hammond Clinic started remodeling its specialty center. The construction is designed to improve convenience and comfort for patients and will change much of the clinic’s first floor. Work should be completed by this spring. Once finished, the project will have included improvements to the main entrance, lobby, reception area, waiting area, disclosure and disability, patient representatives, urgent care check-in and waiting area, laboratory, and pharmacy.

“It had been about 20 years since we had done any major renovation to the main building. We wanted to make it more modern and welcoming, and it is part of a commitment to serving our community better,” said DeLao. “We also started a four-bed sleep lab about a year ago, as well as offering mobile PET scan services for our patients.


”Hammond Clinic plans to convert its ambulatory surgery center into a specialty hospital, the sleep diagnostics lab has expanded its hours to meet patient needs, and the clinic’s audiology department offers the new Radius hearing system. This is all part of an effort to secure Hammond Clinic’s place as the provider of choice in the area. But that effort is not limited to patient services, as Hammond Clinic is also investing in the implementation of the Mysis EMR system.

“Physicians are becoming accustomed to using EMRs, and many new physicians we were hiring asked if we had one. We realized that within the next few years, it would probably become mandated, and we felt this was the right time for us,” DeLao said. “And in addition to being an internal improvement in documentation, it is going to allow us to better serve our patients.”
As the area around it continues to grow, DeLao and her team will keep the clinic’s focus on improving the quality of its facilities and services. Like all providers, Hammond Clinic is struggling to deal with issues related to Medicare reimbursement, as well as recruitment and retention of qualified doctors and nurses. But because its management understands the needs of doctors and patients alike, DeLao is confident the clinic can face those challenges with a strong plan in place.

“We have to make ourselves as efficient as we can and take advantage of all the technological improvements we can find to cut the cost of providing each service,” said DeLao. “We also have to continue to attract more patients to increase our patient volume. That’s just a given.”

 
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