Hospital talks quality assurance

A pair of department heads gave updates on what they are doing during Tuesday night’s Faith Community Hospital meeting.

Peggy Raley, quality assurance director, said the hospital pledges to all of its guests that they have the optimal experience, no matter the department. A policy and procedures manual has been developed to ensure quality between departments. Each department has at least three monitors, or goals they strive to meet on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Of the 256 monitors in the most recent survey, the hospital met 74 percent of them. While that may not sound like a good thing, Raley took it entirely as a positive.

“While many strive for 100 percent, you really don’t want to be 100 percent,” Raley said. “If you’re at 100 percent, it shows that you’re not improving. You’ve become stagnant and you never want that.”

Reports then go to a number of state and federal agencies. She says the hospital is ever evolving to meet the demand of its community and a growing health system as a whole.

One area that has received rave reviews is the hospital’s food service department. Executive Chef Kathy Warnell, the only executive chef at a rural hospital in the state, spoke about her department and the wide variety of food for not only patients but the general public. Warnell works with Dietary Manager Melissa Coufal and doctors to make sure the patients are getting what they need on a daily basis.

“Diets can change while a patient is here, so we keep a constant watch,” Warnell said. “We’re able to monitor changes electronically.”

Family members staying with the patient as part of the healing process are given meal vouchers or meals to eat with the patient.

Faith Cafe is open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day and receives a large amount of not only hospital staff but also the general public. With the new hospital facility opening in 2015, the amount of inhouse catering being done has expanded exponentially, Warnell said.

“With four conference rooms, we can have events going at the same time,” Warnell said. “I have a great team and it is a pleasure to work with all of them.”

Employees and the public have been known to take dinner home with them after calling in an order. Warnell said the hospital also takes special orders for cookies, pies and the like anytime of year.

Perhaps the most heartwarming thing Warnell says she has done is the Cooking with Faith program, which allowed 10 JHS students to go through a course which ended with them cooking for family, JISD and hospital administrators.

“To get their food handling certificate, they had to go through making pizzas for themselves and then cooked for about 50 people,” Warnell explained. “That was very gratifying.”