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Hospital Report Card – Strategic Planning

BMH 2011 Community Report: Strategic Planning, Decision-making and Identification of Health Care Needs.

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital’s current strategic plan was created in 2010. It is an update to the 2007 plan and covers the next 12 -18 months.  The process involved a thorough environmental assessment with input from the BMH Medical Staff, Leadership Team, and the Board.

Community input into the strategic plan and into identification of health care needs is obtained by:

  • The presence of community members on the Planning Committee.
  • A telephone survey of 250 area residents in 2008 on health care needs and perceptions.
  • A Community Health Assessment conducted by United Way of Windham County with support and involvement of BMH. The 2009 assessment included a 350 household telephone survey, 8 focus groups and 11 key leader interviews. The survey etc. included questions on availability of medical, dental and mental health services, access to needed care and the need for new programs.

Other Opportunities for public participation with BMH include:

  1. Serving as Corporators –150 community members who comprise the Corporators are invited to the annual meeting of BMH and our parent corporation. Corporators also serve on various Hospital committees including the Planning Committee which oversees the creation and implementation of the strategic plan.
  2. Board membership and Board responsibility to represent community interests in decision making. The BMH Board is comprised of 11 voting members, 9 of whom are community residents with no other affiliation to the Hospital.
  3. Active involvement of 135 volunteers who assist with many aspects of hospital work and who provide ongoing feedback to hospital managers.
  4. Annual public meeting is held specifically for the purpose of gathering input into the Hospital’s strategic plan and into the Hospital services provided and needed. The 2010 meeting was held jointly with the Brattleboro Retreat on September 23, 2010. We increased the publicity about the meeting and had the largest attendance yet. The CEOs of both Hospitals spoke along with other senior leaders. Feedback from the public was encouraged.
  5. BMH actively relies on patient satisfaction surveys which gather extensive feedback on hospital services from inpatients, Emergency Department patients, Rehabilitation Services patients and all other hospital outpatients (radiology, laboratory, oncology, cardio respiratory etc.). We use the scores and patient comments to improve our services.

For more information about public participation events, you may contact Ellen Smith, Executive Director of Development & Community Relations at 802- 257-8485 or esmith@bmhvt.org; BMH Director of Community Education Wendy Cornwell at 802-257-8325 or wcornwell@bmhvt.org; or you may access our main hospital website at www.bmhvt.org and click on Current Events.

Initiatives BMH is undertaking to meet hospital service area needs include:

  1. Physician recruiting – Community members are concerned about access to primary care physicians. This was identified quantitatively in the Community Needs Assessment telephone survey and the focus groups. BMH has recruited 5 new primary care physicians to Brattleboro and one new physician to Putney, VT since June 2010. The new doctors take Medicaid, underinsured and uninsured patients.
  2. Expanding/Improving Emergency Services – Physician Assistant/Nurse Practitioners have been added to the ED during the busiest times. A CON application for renovation and expansion of the Emergency Department will be submitted by September 2011. A Lean project to improve patient transfers from the ED to the 3rd Floor (our largest med/surg unit) has been completed and will get patients into their inpatient room faster.
  3. BMH is continuing to work to improve access to mammography screening. According to the Health Status of Vermonters, 2008, breast cancer screening of women 40+ years (mammogram in the last 2 years) is statistically worse in Windham County than Vermont (68% vs. 77%).
In August 2008 BMH opened its mammography suite in the Richard’s building. Wait time for appointments is now 1 day. State of the art digital mammography is offered with very fast turnaround time on results. Now that we have good appointment availability, we are increasing publicity about the importance of mammography screening. Our radiology department also educated the medical staff on radiation exposure.  We suspect the economic recession has resulted women postponing mammography screening. Our publicity includes information on Ladies First to address financial barriers.
  • BMH is actively engaged in the readiness phase of the Blue Print for Health medical home program. We expect to have Windham Family Practice, a hospital employed primary care practice certified in the summer of 2011. Brattleboro Primary Care is also pursuing certification.

Copies of the BMH strategic plan can be obtained by calling or writing Prudence MacKinney, Vice President Physician and Business Development (802) 257-8367, pmackinney@bmhvt.org, 17 Belmont Avenue, Brattleboro, VT 05301.

The capital expenditure plan and depreciation schedule can be obtained by calling or writing Michael Rogers, Vice President of Finance, (802) 257-8279, mrogers@bmhvt.org, 17 Belmont Avenue, Brattleboro, VT 05301.