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Congratulations to the Blessing Lauretta M. Eno Early Learning Center team, celebrating 50 years of service to the organization this year. The Center opened February 19, 1974 - during a time when recruiting nurses was nearly as difficult as it is today. The idea was that on-site child care would attract and retain staff. It worked then and is still working today - helping us with our Best Place to Work/Employee Engagement/Recruitment/Retention goal. Thank you to each member of the Early Learning Center team for the peace of mind you bring to your fellow Blessing employees as they work; and the love, learning and joy you share with their children.
Meet our newest team members! Our Snuggle Squad is a new service of our maternity center, Blessed Beginnings. These hand-picked volunteers will be called upon when a mother or another family member is not available to spend time with their newborn - in cases such as adoption or foster care for example - to allow the nursing staff to focus on its vital medical duties knowing that the baby involved is safely in the care of a trained volunteer. Rose Bunte, a Blessed Beginnings retiree and member of the Snuggle Squad said, "I know, having worked in the nursery for 35 years, nothing is more upsetting than having a baby crying and you are not able to calm them because you have critical nursing responsibilities that must be attended to first. I know how helpful it is to have someone come in and hold that baby so the nursing staff can provide the care that only they can." This is another way we are providing a safe, high-quality healthcare experience for all in our care.
Recently DNV, a global independent certification body, re-certified Blessing as a Primary Stroke Center through 2026. In a news release about our re-certification, president of DNV Healthcare USA, Inc., Kelly Proctor, said, "Achieving certification shows commitment to excellence, and it helps demonstrate to your community that you are performing at the highest level." Congratulations to the Stroke Committee and its affiliated members that work tirelessly to ensure our stroke care processes meet or exceed national standards and that exceptional stroke care is delivered.
Our patients deserve exceptional care. So one of our goals is to further enhance patient safety. We call it achieving "Zero Harm". Each month, the Quality & Performance Improvement Department recognizes a team that is getting the job done. Most recently the Rehabilitation Services team was recognized. They achieved zero CLABSI (central line bloodstream infections) last fiscal year; as of 12/20/23 went more than 266 days since their last CAUTI (catheter associated urinary infection), and 171 days since their last C Diff (Clostridium Difficile). They also worked very hard over the summer to become a no tape environment by removing the tape from their therapy equipment.
The 1st annual Blessing Health System Patient Experience Awards ceremony recognized and honored departments, clinics, and providers who had received high marks from our patients through survey data. We celebrated these top performers for showing their commitment to serving our patients and their families by continuously striving for excellence in healthcare and delivering compassionate, patient-centered care. Recipients of these awards were selected based on data from close to 23,000 patient surveys from 2023 to determine this year’s award winners. Our top decile providers ranked above the 90th percentile when compared to our survey vendor Press Ganey’s national database that encompasses over 41,000 hospitals and clinics. Criteria for the Exceptional Groups and Most Improved awards were given to the department or clinics that consistently exceeded patient experience goals for the 2023 fiscal year by sustaining the highest metric, or by improving to the highest metric. Congratulations again to the deserving award recipients, and thank you for setting a remarkable example of the quality care and service we aim to provide at Blessing Health System.
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month closes, we recognize every Blessing Health team member who touches the life of a breast cancer patient in any way, and we thank our patients for choosing Blessing Health for their care. Patients choose Blessing for our technology, but also for our compassion. That's what Katie Thomure (foreground of photo) told us she found in her Blessing Breast Center team of Lori Mayfield, Kathy Wellman and Kelly Koch, and the surgery and oncology teams who cared for her. Everyone who touches the life of a breast cancer patient changes their life for the better!
Blessing and Illini Hospitals and all affiliated departments have been awarded by DNV full certification to the ISO 9001 Quality Management System. DNV is a global, independent, certification provider. ISO 9001 is the most widely-accepted quality management system in use around the world, and is quickly gaining acceptance among US healthcare providers as a foundation for quality and patient safety programs. “Everyone who proudly wears a Blessing name tag is dedicated to providing the safest and most effective healthcare services possible,” said Mary Frances Barthel, MD, MHCM, SFHM, FACP, Chief Quality and Safety Officer, Blessing Health. “ISO 9001 certification not only reflects that mission, but helps to empower it.” “The effort required to achieve certification has fundamentally transformed the way we do business. ISO 9001 is ideally suited to the complex, people-intensive challenges of operating our hospitals and fulfilling our mission of improving the health of our communities,” she concluded.
Patients will begin using the new Blessing Cancer Center Hannibal on Monday, September 18. Located inside the South Entrance to the Blessing Health Hannibal campus, the design of the new treatment and provider office area focuses on patient privacy and comfort in a climate-controlled environment. It will be the new home of the Blessing Health Hannibal Medical Oncology/Hematology team of Drs. Arif Bari and Mohammed Memon, and Amanda Jennings, nurse practitioner; Drs. Muhammad Ali and Raymond Smith, and nursing team, patient navigators, a dietician, licensed clinical social worker and two clinical researchers. It also acts as a lab draw area for cancer center patients and new infusion center for chemotherapy and other specialty infusions and injections, and conveniently locates patients inside the same building as other Blessing Health Hannibal providers they may need to see, and for other services including lab and imaging services they may use. Because the cancer center is now on the Blessing Health Hannibal campus, it is officially recognized by regulatory agencies as part of Blessing’s nationally accredited cancer service, making additional resources available to patients. The Blessing Health Hannibal Retail Pharmacy will be located adjacent to the Cancer Center. The Retail Pharmacy will allow patients to pick up medications their provider prescribed during their appointment before leaving the building.
The exceptional work of the RNs of the Blessing Health Hannibal CT team, earned this praise from a patient: “The nurses in the CT unit are the best! When you get in the unit they treat you like family! They talk to you while they work to make you feel comfortable and relaxed! I tell everybody they are the best!"
We are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the cardiac electrophysiology program (EP). This exclusive service was created as a result of the commitment of Dr. John Hammock who answered the call when Blessing Health administration approached him with the idea to apply for an EP fellowship to add another level of heart care for residents of the region. Dr. Hammock was accepted into the clinical cardiac electrophysiology fellowship program at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center. The doctor, his wife and three children moved nearly 600 miles from Quincy to Oklahoma City for a year. The Blessing EP team performed its first procedure in August 2013. Over the past decade thousands of patients have had their health and quality of life improved without having to leave the region, thanks to the tireless and dedicated service of our EP team.
