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By Michele Smith
The Times 

CCHS Seeks Long-Term Care Funding

CEO Shane McGuire also reports on tele-psychiatric services, palliative care

 


CEO Shane McGuire also reports on tele-psychiatric services, palliative care

DAYTON--Speaking at the Hospital District board meeting for April, CEO Shane McGuire talked about the outreach and business enhancement initiatives that he and other CCHS staff have been working on.

Contracts with the University of Washington to provide psychiatric support for CCHS patients are being finalized. Plans also include provision of tele-psychiatric services, so that patients can have face-to-face time with psychiatrists, he said.

“We are particularly excited that one of the psychiatrists is also an addiction specialist,” said McGuire.

McGuire said he attended the Washington State Hospital Association CEO retreat, on April 10, in Port Ludlow, Wash. At that meeting, Health Care Authority Director Susan Birch said she will focus efforts on payment reform and reallocation of resources for rural health systems, according to McGuire.

The Health Care Authority is the umbrella organization for Medicaid, Medicare and aging and long-term care.

On April 16, McGuire attended a Washington State Rural Access Preservation meeting, focusing on the topic of community-based long-term care.

Discussion of a new payment methodology for rural hospitals that will help preserve and expand long-term care services was the topic. The goal is to identify funding sources for some type of capitated or hybrid capitated model for aging and long-term care.

“This group is eagerly waiting to hear if we’ve been awarded a grant to support our pilot project over the next three years,” McGuire said. Virtually all the growth in the Community-Based Long-Term Network communities, such as ours, has occurred in the elderly population, he said.

Proposed services include network-level RN care coordination and tele-monitoring for elderly patients with chronic diseases in their homes, along with providing supportive housing for people who are not able to live safely at home.

The $600,000 grant would be split four ways, between Dayton, Ephrata, Odessa and Forks, McGuire said.

Dayton General Hospital is one of five rural hospitals in the state with a long-term nursing care facility. This number will shrink to four, because Newport is shuttering their long-term care in favor of an assisting living facility.

On April 18, the CCHS team participated in a Kadlec Medical Center vendor fair, to promote the enhanced swing bed services, palliative care and wound care services at DGH, McGuire reported.

The KMC discharge team expressed concerns about travel distance for their patients, he said. He offered that loved ones could be accommodated overnight, though this would be on a case-by-case basis.

“Health support by family is a function of healing, and isolation from loved ones could actually create (health) complications,” said McGuire.

McGuire said the Washington Rural Palliative Care Initiative workshop that was held April 22, at the Best Western yielded three objectives. There will be a standard screening tool in place to identify which patients are candidates for palliative care, all residents in the District will be made aware of palliative care services by July 1, and gaps in the ability to deliver care in the community will be identified and addressed.

McGuire said CCHS is still looking into tele-hospitalist services for the emergency department, and to provide for back up during nights and weekends when staffing is limited.

The District’s accounting firm DZA will complete the 2017 cost report for the hospital. DZA representative Tom Dingus will present the 2017 financial report to the Hospital District Commissioners at their meeting in May.

That meeting has been moved from Thursday, May 24 to Tuesday, May 22, at 6 pm, in the District Boardroom.

 

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