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Hospital celebrates a year of healthy firsts

February 28, 2010 12:35 am

BY JIM HALL

In a year of operation, Stafford Hospital has never had a patient develop a pressure ulcer, a central-line infection or ventilator-associated pneumonia.

"Everything we should be doing on the quality side we're doing," said Cathy Yablonski, administrator.

Yet as it celebrates its first birthday this weekend, Stafford Hospital is also a place of possibilities. Its waiting rooms and hallways are often empty. Its facilities are underused.

In recent months, the census of patients has hovered around 40. Because of this, one of the patient floors in the 100-bed building has never opened.

'ALMOST EUPHORIA'

"This first year it was crazy," Yablonski said. "It was getting all the pieces that we needed to get together."

Employees worked on adrenaline, "almost euphoria," she said, and have largely completed the task.

Except for pending expansion of the nursery, all programs are in place.

Now Yablonski is asking the staff to sustain, even improve on, the work they've done.

"Now it gets into the hard part," she said.

ALL IN A YEAR

Stafford Hospital Center opened Feb. 27, 2009. It was the second hospital in the region, the first truly new hospital in Virginia in more than 30 years.

Along the way, it shortened its name to Stafford Hospital, earned preliminary accreditation from the Joint Commission, and treated more than 30,000 people in its emergency department.

It has also added new services, including last week's opening of the cardiac catheterization lab.

It has inspired at least one other commercial development, a 52-acre rezoning to the south that includes medical offices.

And it has brought lifesaving care closer to thousands of Stafford County residents.

"It's made our life so much easier," said Terri Gamlin, a paramedic with the Stafford County Fire and Rescue Department. "With the hospital so close now, we can turn a call over in an hour."

LIKE ITS BIG BROTHER

In many ways, Stafford is like its big brother, the 412-bed Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg.

Almost all of its in-house doctors--the anesthesiologists, radiologists, hospitalists, ER doctors and neonatalogists--came from Mary Washington.

In addition, a few Fredericksburg-based specialists, from surgeons to obstetricians, have opened satellite offices there and now practice in both places.

But in other ways, Stafford Hospital is more than "Mary Washington North," as some have called it.

The hospital has borrowed much of what it does from Mary Washington, then "Staffordized" it, as Yablonski says, or adapted it for a smaller hospital.

In addition, up to 50 percent of its patients are from Prince William County or North Stafford. Until it opened, they had always gone north for their care.

And the same is true for its doctors. About 20 percent of the medical staff is new to Mary Washington Healthcare, the parent company of the two hospitals.

Dr. Thomas Raley, for example, is an orthopedic surgeon who works mostly in Woodbridge, Arlington and Washington. He joined the medical staff at Stafford about nine months ago and now does two to three surgeries a week there.

Raley said he was interested in Stafford because it was a new hospital in a growing area, and because no one else there was doing the kind of minimally invasive spine surgery that he does.

"Stafford is up to date," Raley said. "Some of these older hospitals are very small and don't have the technology."

Raley said that "marketing" may be a way to build volume at Stafford. He said he's been surprised at the number of patients who reply "Where's that?" when he tells them he will operate on them at Stafford Hospital.

He's also surprised at how few Fredericksburg doctors practice at Stafford.

"A lot of the docs at Mary Washington don't go there, so obviously they're not going to take their patients there," he said.

"It amazes me when you talk about Stafford" to them, he added. "They think it's another country."

For Yablonski, persuading area residents and physicians to choose Stafford Hospital is a challenge she accepts.

"Volume comes as you continue to get the story out," she said, "as you continue to bring on new services, as you continue to recruit new physicians."

Jim Hall: 540/374-5433
Email: jhall@freelancestar.com