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| Highlands Regional Medical Center: Upping the Ante |
| Specialized Hosp. | |||
| Written by Meghan Flynn | |||
| Thursday, 01 May 2008 | |||
 Harold Warman explains the measures one Kentucky hospital is taking to remain independent and increase the accessibility of its growing number of services.
 Harold Warman, President and CEO “Healthcare was very much a cottage industry,” said Warman, explaining that people would visit their town doctor at a tiny clinic, staffed by a nurse or two. For anything other than emergency or primary care, people had to traverse miles on these unreliable roads. About 30 years ago, some residents of the county decided to change the situation. A group of community leaders organized what is now Highlands Regional Medical Center with the goal of providing their community with greater access to modern healthcare. Some of those leaders are still on the board of directors. “I’ve been involved with six or seven boards in my career,” said Warman, “and for where we’re located and the size of this community, we have an extremely dedicated and capable board. They know what it takes to manage and grow a hospital.” New tactics A lot has changed in the healthcare industry since the organization began, but Warman and the board have established a strategic plan to continue to provide accessible, quality care in today’s changing environment while remaining independent. The board organized three strategic planning sessions, involving everyone from the hospital staff to regional residents and local governments, to establish the hospital’s priorities and ways to achieve them. The sessions not only reaffirmed the community’s desire for an independent hospital, but also developed a new way of thinking about healthcare to meet the demands of the region Highlands serves. “Rather than viewing our hospital as four walls, we decided to look at developing a regional network that would be supported by this main building but could reach out into the community,” said Warman. Developing a branch network to serve a growing population requires a large number of physicians, so Highlands has adopted an aggressive partnering approach to bring them on board. “We will do whatever it takes to bring a physician into our organization,” said Warman. “This is an underserved area, and there is great opportunity for them to build a prominent practice, so we help them do that. We go into business with our physicians.” Highlands also reaches out to local students interested in medical school, often helping them pay for their education in hopes they will come back to the region to practice. So far, these strategies are paying off, and in the past few months, Highlands has undertaken two building projects to expand its resources. One is a renovation of medical offices in downtown Prestonsburg that Highlands is leasing in a special deal with the physicians who practice there. The idea is for Highlands to gain revenue from the real estate while supporting the physicians with hospital resources. The second project is the building of a new ED. Built in the early 1980s, the previous facility was designed to accommodate about 15,000 visits, and the ED now exceeds 25,000 visits each year. “The facility just wasn’t able to handle that kind of patient flow and the modern equipment we were using. We’ve switched to all private rooms and a better design that will really help us better serve our patients,” said Warman. Technology skeleton On top of the physical growth of the system, Highlands has invested in and developed its IT capabilities, which Warman sees as fundamental to achieving the organization’s goal of greater accessibility. “In everything we do, technology will be the backbone, allowing us to reach further and operate more effectively,” he said. Highlands has invested heavily in EMR and imaging technology, and now any physician in the network can quickly access lab results or diagnostic images and communicate instantly with anyone in the hospital—a far cry from the coal trucks and bad weather that once prevented Highland’s patients from getting the best care available. In the past 10 years, Highlands has retooled itself to handle a changing healthcare environment and operate in a growing region with unique challenges. This is a tumultuous industry, and Warman said his strategy to lead this organization into the future is to be ready for anything. “I have a lot of smart people working here, and I think my role is to set the stage for people to succeed, and then get out of the way,” said Warman. “To manage a healthcare network like this, you need to adapt yourself to what you’re facing that very minute and go from there.” |
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