Executive Notes

Dan DeBarba
EVP, Western Connecticut Health Network
President, Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital

As you may know, I’m now based at Danbury Hospital, serving as Executive Vice President of the Network and President of Danbury and New Milford Hospitals. I’m excited about the chance to serve the greater Danbury community and be more involved in local hospital operations, expansion initiatives and growth opportunities.

For the past 7 years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with an exceptional group of physicians, nurses and staff at Norwalk Hospital. With Mike Daglio as my successor, Norwalk Hospital is poised for continued growth and success. I hope you will join me in supporting Mike in his new role. Together, Mike and I will work hard to engage patients, physicians, staff and the community in support of our shared mission to improve the health and well-being of all those we serve.

Initially, my key areas of focus will be employee engagement, physician engagement and the patient experience. With the affiliation, we have an incredible opportunity to bring three hospital teams and our affiliates together to redefine the patient experience and improve patient satisfaction scores. The good news is that across the network, there’s a growing amount of interest and enthusiasm around improving the patient experience. Stay tuned for more details, especially in terms of what this means for physicians across the network.

I’m also committed to driving the network’s pursuit of being a high reliability organization. With a goal of training all physicians and employees by year end, I’m confident we are taking the appropriate steps to create a culture of safety, one that continually achieves high levels of safety and quality.

I look forward to working with WCMG staff and visiting our physicians and practices. As we continue to expand our network of providers, I want to ensure that physicians share a sense of pride in our network and believe that WCHN is a great place to practice and to refer patients for care.

Just as I was leaving Norwalk, we received word from the American Nurses Credentialing Center acknowledging Norwalk Hospital for achieving the Pathway to Excellence® designation. Nursing leadership has worked tirelessly to build a stellar nursing team and create a culture where nurses can flourish. This prestigious designation confirms the nursing staff’s unwavering commitment to our patients. Please join me in congratulating them on this well-deserved designation.

As always, thanks for all that you do to contribute to our success.

Happy Holidays.
Dan

Medical Staff Update Danbury Hospital

William V. Begg III, MD FACEP
Medical Staff President – Danbury Hospital

Medical Staff Changes/Single License:
Integration of the Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital Medical Staffs was formalized as of October 1, 2014 when Danbury and New Milford Hospitals transitioned to a single hospital license with a single set of bylaws. (Read More in Dr. Tom Koobatian’s report below.)

Recognizing the importance of our colleagues who practice on the New Milford campus, strides have been made towards that end. Dr. John Mullen, New Milford Medical Staff President (2013-2014) will remain a medical staff officer and will be an integral part of our Medical Executive Committee as well as General Medical Staff Meetings going forward. Those on the northern campus will have the ability to access General Medical Staff meetings as well as other meetings remotely. The combined Credentials Committee continues to have multiple representatives from New Milford and Danbury campuses. Please feel free to email or call me if you have any suggestions or comments about this transitional period.

READ MORE...

Danbury and New Milford Hospital Medical Affairs Update

Patricia Tietjen, MD
VPMA Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital

On October 1, 2014, Danbury and New Milford Hospitals began working under one license. With this, we became one medical staff and each of the respective clinical departments merged into single departments. This transition occurred smoothly, thanks to the hard work and involvement of all of the medical staff members. This is a great opportunity to work together to increase and improve the services that we can provide for our patients. Many informational and educational activities are offered across the two hospitals and we are working on ways to allow remote participation.

Looking south, we have worked with our colleagues at Norwalk Hospital to standardize care across the network. The Departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery and Ob/Gyn have developed standardized clinical pathways for more than 30 disease states. This work will continue and expand to other departments over the coming year.

Congratulations and thank you to our Palliative Care team. In October, our Palliative Care Program received Joint Commission accreditation. Danbury’s program is only the 96th in the country to achieve this designation. Our Stroke Program will be reviewed by the Joint Commission later this year for continued accreditation.

The search for a system wide Cancer Center Chief has finally concluded with the appointment of Dr. Thomas Rutherford. He is a notable gynecologic oncologist and his arrival in January 2015 is greatly anticipated. The search for the next Chairman of Medicine is in progress.

Happy Holidays.
Pat

Norwalk Hospital Medical Affairs Update

Lewis Berman
VPMA Norwalk Hospital

It has been an eventful 3 months at Norwalk Hospital:

• The ad-hoc Medical Staff Bylaws Committee, comprised of both voluntary and Hospital employed physicians, has continued its work. The committee, working with the Medical Staff specialty law firm Horty Springer, has reviewed the proposed Bylaws, Credentials Policy, and Organizational Manual and is about to start on new Rules and Regulations. We plan to move on to our Physicians Health and Peer Review policies over the winter.


• Our new Chairman of Psychiatry, Dr. Antolin Trinidad, arrived in September and has been active both managerially and clinically. He has appointed Dr. Dorothea Schuetz-Mueller as Director of Outpatient Behavioral Health Services and Dr. Limore Maron as Director of Consultation/Liaison and Psychiatric ED Services. I want to thank Dr. Harold Ginsburg for serving as Acting Chair while we searched for Dr. Trinidad.


• Dr. Jason Orlinick assumed the role of Chairman of Medicine on September 1, 2014 after serving as Acting Chair and Hospitalist Section Chief for 6 months. To replace Dr. Orlinick in his prior roles, Dr. Natallia Abramovich has been selected as Section Chief of Hospitalist Medicine and Dr. Mark Kulaga has been appointed as Associate Chairman of Medicine.


• In order to better meet the needs of our surgeons, Norwalk Hospital has added staff and opened an additional operating room to allow more flexibility in adding cases to the operating schedule. In concert with this, Dr. Eric Kitain, Chairman of Anesthesia, has been appointed Medical Director of the Operating Rooms.


• Norwalk Hospital has been designated as an American College of Radiology designated Lung Cancer Screening Center. Becoming ACR certified required a multidisciplinary approach. In addition to exacting Radiology and Radiologist standards, the criteria require a clinical follow up system for self-referred individuals and smoking cessation interventions for current smokers. I want to congratulate Alan Richman for supervising this process and Steve Winter and Jim Bauman who were key participants in the process.


• Our High Reliability training is well underway. Every Department has provided training at Grand Rounds or Business Meetings. The Medical Staff Office will be sending out information soon to allow physicians to receive this training remotely via videos.

Lew

Thomas Koobatian
Executive Director and Chief of Staff
New Milford Hospital

Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital joined together under a single license on October 1, 2014. The Medical Staffs of both hospitals also came together to form a unified Medical Staff under a new set of by-laws. With each year since the 2010 merger of the hospitals, our medical staffs have become increasingly integrated and collaborative, resulting in more choices for our patients and better access to specialized medicine.

New Milford Hospital successfully launched the Soarian Clinical IT platform on October 1, 2014.  The Soarian platform and many other smaller software programs that were simultaneously launched, now fully integrate the IT of Danbury and New Milford Hospitals. In addition to a seamlessly integrated electronic medical record, users have easy access to all lab tests, cardiovascular and radiologic studies performed at either campus.

An update on the New Milford Hospital Vision and Communications Plan will be presented to the Strategic Planning Committee, NMH Advisory Board and the WCHN Board of Directors in December.  A community panel was also formed to assist in dialogue guiding the future direction of NMH programs and services. The goal is to formulate a vision and plan for New Milford Hospital that best meets the community’s needs in the context of a transforming health care landscape.

Over the past six months New Milford Hospital has opened a new Cardiac Rehab facility and gift shop. In the next few weeks, the new lobby and café will open, followed by a new hospital Pharmacy, and in the spring our new Emergency Department will come on line. These are all exciting additions that will help lead the transformation of New Milford Hospital.