At the close of another year, I would like to take the time to issue this report regarding your hospital, Franklin Medical Center. We hope that you find this summary of events helpful for staying better informed of what is happening with your facility.
After experiencing a financial loss last year, our annual audit for the fiscal year 2010-2011 demonstrated a profit of over $400,000. We were able to deposit funds into our reserves and meet our expenses, again without any need for local tax dollars to do so.
We also instituted a full-time hospitalist program with Dr. David Colvin, Dr. Tom Colvin, Dr. Ron Morgan, and Dr. Tom Wooldridge. This allows our medical staff greater time for seeing patients in their clinics, as well as providing a higher quality of care for our patients by having a doctor fully dedicated to their inpatient stay at all times.
The especially difficult process of initiating a fully electronic health record in accordance with federal mandates continues, with computerized physician order entry set to go live next February.
We have stayed focused in our mission to supply the best health care available in a community environment so that the people of Franklin and Tensas Parishes are not forced to seek treatment elsewhere. Please note the following:
- The Franklin Medical Center programs for breast cancer awareness and mammography won the Louisiana Rural Health Association award for Outstanding Rural Health Program for the entire State of Louisiana.
- For the first time ever, patients in our area have regular and reliable access to an MRI.
- Our behavioral health program continues to grow at an exceptional pace. Dr. Leigh Traylor Liles of Winnsboro has returned to provide much-needed services to our community. No other rural hospital in Louisiana provides such a comprehensive program, with both licensed clinical social workers and psychiatrists available for the people of our area. Grant funding is providing a further expansion of the program into the tele-medicine field, which will allow us to use video conferencing technology to reach patients in distant locations.
- New state-of-the-art beds were purchased, and all old beds for both inpatients and the emergency room were replaced in order to provide greater comfort for our patients.
- Dr. Gary Baskin, a Winnsboro native, committed to returning to his hometown next summer as an emergency medicine physician. He will be the first resident in the history of Franklin Medical Center to be recruited exclusively for providing emergency care. His work in Detroit emergency rooms for the last three years has given him an enormous amount of experience for dealing with high level emergencies.
- Our telemetry system was entirely replaced to allow for better patient monitoring, especially those patients recovering from surgery. We also installed new cardiac monitors in the emergency room and ICU.
- Construction began on the new Crowville Health Center, which will provide an all-new access point for health care in North Franklin Parish.
- We have continued to work on upgrading our physical plant, with renovations made to outpatient surgery and an extensive re-design of our flagship clinic in Winnsboro.
- Patients requiring wound care can now have their dressings tended and debridements done locally, without a long drive to another facility.
- Our emergency room team and physicians continued their relationship with Tulane University by attending their simulation center training for critical care scenarios.
- A new relationship with Air Evac air ambulance services gives our entire community greater emergency access to helicopter transport than ever before.
- Franklin Medical Center signed an agreement with the William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine to allow medical students to receive their training here in our community.
We hope this adequately illustrates the extraordinary hard work of your local health care staff and providers. Our main goal is to give you a hospital that you and your family know will offer the absolute best treatment available. I again emphasize my request from last year. If for any reason at all your experience with us was less than ideal, please let us know.
None of this would be possible without the tremendous hearts and compassionate souls of our team of employees. Thank you all so much for your continued drive to be the best we can be.
In addition, if you see your hospital board members, please thank them for their service. They have volunteered for an incredibly difficult job, and we hope they are recognized for doing so.
In conclusion as always, we extend our gratitude to the medical staff for supporting our community hospital- Chief of Staff Dr. Roger Smith, Vice-Chief Dr. Jeff Combetta, Dr. Jay Busby, Dr. David Colvin, Dr. Tom Colvin, Dr. Jimmy Coughran, Dr. Joel Eldridge, Dr. Leigh Traylor Liles, Dr. Ron Morgan, Dr. Lee Pankey, Dr. Frank Sanfiel, Dr. Tom Wooldridge, and Dr. Scott Zentner.
Everyone have a joyful Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
Blake Kramer,
Administrator