Lebanon
“As New Hampshire’s only tertiary care medical facility, demand for our services is extremely high,” Dartmouth-Hitchcock Chief Clinical Officer Edward J. Merrens, said in a news release. “The use of telemedicine across the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Healthcare system and around the region aligns with our mission of providing the best care in the appropriate setting, whether it be at DHMC or at the patient’s local hospital and with the support of Dartmouth-Hitchcock specialists.”
The program will use eICU software manufactured by Philips. The technology provides predictive analytics, data visualization and advanced reporting to help deliver information to bedside caregivers. With this remote support, the bedside team is able to make better informed, more efficient and effective value-based care decisions. Research has shown that the system can reduce mortality by 26 percent and reduce the length of hospitalization by 30 percent.
“As telemedicine continues to expand, the evidence of clinical and outcome benefit becomes increasingly robust,” Dartmouth-Hitchcock Connected Care Medical Director Kevin Curtis said.
By utilizing telemedicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock will be able to build on its mission of providing patients the best care in the appropriate setting — whether at DHMC, or through Connected Care Telehealth services at local hospitals, with the support of specialists based at DHMC, the organization said.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the hospital of the future doesn’t look like the hospital environment as we know it today,” said Felix Baader, business leader of monitoring analytics at Philips.
Springfield, Vt.
New hires in the Springfield office include Nicole Neff, a residential specialist; Paula Wright, a crisis intervention specialist; Amy Pandolfi, a clinician; and Dawne Morgan-Sanders, a board-certified behavior analyst supervisor. In Brattleboro, Chad Simmons will work as the Health Resources and Services Administration project coordinator, and Nicholas Cannon will work as a residential specialist in Brattleboro. School-based clinicians Lily Hughes-Dunn and Debra Hayes will work in Newfane and Hartford respectively.
Claremont
More than 1,200 hospitals across the country participated in the 2018 Hospital Organ Donation Campaign to promote organ, eye and tissue donation, conducting registration and awareness activities to increase the number of organ donors in their community. Valley Regional received a Platinum Award for its efforts, putting it in the top 10 percent of participating hospitals nationally.
“This was achieved as a result of the dedication and commitment this hospital has in support of organ and tissue donation” Kerrie Casey, of New England Donor Services, said in a news release.
Peter J. Wright, president and CEO of Valley Regional Healthcare, said that he was proud of his organization’s effort.
“Organ and tissue donation save lives,” he said. “We did more than just ensure we have the right protocols in place. Our team made it their mission to become educators and champions. That will directly result in saving more lives.”
Bradford, Vt.
The program will be based at the Valley Vista Bradford campus on the unit that previously housed the facility’s adolescent treatment program. It will offer 14 inpatient beds with services ranging from medically supervised detoxification to comprehensive post discharge planning. The program is making use of the existing staff that supported the adolescent treatment as well as new staff.
The goal in creating this program is to help reduce waitlists for young men seeking inpatient treatment, which can be as long as three weeks. The program started accepting patients on Oct. 1.
“We have been planning this a while and now the time is right,” Amanda Hudak, treatment director at Valley Vista, said in a news release. “We have experienced extended wait lists for some time, particularly on the men’s unit. All too often would-be patients have experienced overdoses while waiting for an inpatient treatment bed to become available. That’s just not acceptable. Launching (this) program offers a solution.”
In addition to SMART Recovery, Seeking Safety, 12-Step programming and other evidence-based models, the new program will make use of the outcomes-positive “Seven Challenges” treatment model, a treatment modality originally developed to serve a younger population. Seven Challenges meets patients where they are in terms of their substance use disorder and often times, co-occurring mental health conditions. The model guides patients towards taking ownership of their recovery, where they are a part of the process, so they can make the healthy decisions needed. Seven Challenges launched an adult version earlier this year, which will be integrated into all Valley Vista programs.
For school-aged patients, Valley Vista is maintaining the educational tutoring that was a successful part of the former Adolescent Treatment Program. The same tutors that worked with the Adolescent Treatment Program will continue to serve school-aged patients in the new program.
“This move by Valley Vista speaks to their ability to recognize and react to the needs for Vermonters impacted by ongoing opioid crisis,” said Brenda Dawson of the Vermont Department of Children and Families Supervisor. “With this realignment of their underutilized adolescent program, the ability to reduce inpatient treatment waitlists will surely help save lives and can help reduce the number of overdoses that can happen while waiting for a residential bed to become available.”
— Compiled by Kelly Burch