By Tiffany Green
The Cullman Times
CULLMAN — On June 1, 2009 Cullman Regional Medical Center announced it would be acquiring Woodland Medical Center. Soon after the purchase CRMC closed Woodland. Woodland’s closure is The Cullman Times number two story of the year.
CRMC officials said Woodland would be closing on July 15. Then, without notice, on July 1, they announced the ER would be closed and patients would need to go to CRMC’s ER for treatment. Patients who arrived for treatment on July 1, were greeted with signs on the door stating the ER was closed and to go to CRMC for further treatment.
Although officials said the transition would be smooth, patients had other thoughts.
Residents who primarily used Woodland were upset by the decision made by CRMC to close the Woodland campus, especially since that would leave no hospital for people on the South end of town.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Allen Sansing while visiting his mother-in-law at Woodland, when he was told of the closure. “For people on the South end of the county, that’s ridiculous.”
Many residents expressed concern over the Emergency Room wait time saying Woodland’s service was quicker that CRMC’s.
Residents said the wait time at Woodland was much better than the hours waited at CRMC.
“I took my son to Woodland from CRMC because we waited three hours and they (Woodland) took him right in,” said one patient.
“Woodland had one heck of an emergency room,” Bill McElroy said.
He said he would rather drive to Huntsville or Birmingham rather than go the CRMC.
“I would rather risk my life driving than go to CRMC,” he said.
CRMC President/CEO Jim Weidner said he anticipated the hospital would be able to handle the influx of new patients, as CRMC is currently in the midst of an emergency room expansion.
“We’ve looked at the patient surge we expect to get and we’re confident we have the people and processes in place to offer the same fast and efficient care,” he said. “My hope is that every patient who has had a positive experience at Woodland will have one at CRMC.”
Inpatient Psychiatric Care
The closure also left no inpatient psychiatric care facility in Cullman. Recently, CRMC announced they will not open a facility.
Before the recent announcement, Weidner said the hospital would do everything they could to accommodate patients.
“The plan is we want the licensed psychiatric beds on this campus, but we do not have the authorization to have them,” Weidner said.
Before the announcement, Weidner said CRMC had a plan for continuing psychiatric care in Cullman.
“This is a top priority for CRMC leadership,” Weidner said. “Our number one goal is to make this transition as smooth as possible for patients.” Woodland Hills discontinued psychiatric services on July 15.
Weidner went on to say CRMC would now be prepared to take any patients who come to the emergency room with behavioral health needs.
“CRMC will stabilize those patients and, if necessary, make arrangements to have them transferred to a designated behavioral health facility in the area, such as Decatur General West,” Weidner said.
Employment
It is unclear how many of the 150 current Woodland employees were retained, but Weidner said, many had the chance to transfer to CRMC.
Butch Naylor, Woodland CEO, said employees would be offered job-hunting assistance, as well as help applying at Woodland affiliated hospitals in Alabama and around the southeast.
“A hospital may just be bricks and mortar, but it’s really about the people,” Naylor said. “We’re doing whatever we can to make sure our people come first.”
Price
The price paid and terms of the purchase agreement were not released, as CRMC officials cited a confidentiality agreement with Woodland regarding the deal.
“We can easily afford it and can’t afford not to do it,” Healthcare Authority of Cullman County Chairman Stephen Donaldson said.
Donaldson said the overall consolidation should be a benefit to the people of Cullman county.
“By competing with each other, we can become marginalized and it hurts our efficiency,” he said. “By consolidating, we can enhance our services and invest in better technology and recruit new physicians ... We feel this should bring us all together to deliver a better product.”
Weidner said the move should make operations more efficient, as Woodland was operating at 25 percent capacity, while CRMC was operating at approximately 65 percent capacity.
“We believe this makes perfect sense to consolidate,” he said. “We will have one facility running at a very efficient level.”
The Woodland campus is still vacant and CRMC has yet to say what they will do with the campus.
Since the closing of Woodland Medical Center in July, CRMC’s ER has seen a more than 36 percent increase in patient volumes.
“The ER treatment time from the time patients register, to the point of patients being discharged, averaged 97 minutes last month,” said Weidner in early December.
Weidner said the patients who leave without being seen is also improving. Left without being seen is defined as a patient signing in and then leaving before receiving treatment.
“For the first six months of 2009, CRMC’s emergency room averaged 1.7 percent left without being seen,” said Jete Edmisson, COO/CFO. “For the month of October, the left without being seen rate was 0.8 percent. November, the ER team decreased the rate to 0.3 percent and December is trending even lower.”
CRMC broke ground in August for the new ER expansion. The expansion is expected to be complete by February of 2011.
The expansion, which should raise the total emergency room space to 13,480-square feet, is slated to increase the size of the ER by approximately 66 percent.
The number of beds in the ER will increase from 20 to 24, while the existing emergency room department will also be renovated.
* Tiffany Green can be reached by e-mail at tgreen@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 220.
