Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from all your friends at Tuomey Healthcare System.

See you all in 2010!

The Lights of Christmas

If you haven’t stopped by Tuomey lately, now’s the time to visit. The main hospital lobby, the Women’s Pavilion, the Outpatient Surgery Center and our Calhoun Street entrance are beautiful right now, thanks to the Christmas trees decorated and sponsored by so many friends of Tuomey. The decorations are incredible – handmade ornaments, traditional bright red balls, beautiful white lights – these trees have it all!

And the best part? In addition to brightening up the hospital, all proceeds are going toward Tuomey’s Hospice program. More than $50,000 has been raised this year alone through our Festival of Trees program. The Tuomey Foundation does an incredible job with this event each year, and the chairman of this event, J. Grady Locklear, gives his heart and soul to this festival, year after year. Thank you Dr. Locklear – it’s an understatement to say that we could not do this without you.

Each year, as we kick off the Festival of Trees and Circle of Lights program, we have a special Hospice family who turns on the lights at the opening program. They really get the event started, and help us to all remember why we do what we do. This year we were so proud to have the Moses family with us to do the honors. I cannot begin to tell you how much this family means to me personally, and to the history of this hospital (and entire community). The lights were turned on this year in memory of Tat Moses, one of our long-time employees who recently passed away from cancer. On hand were her husband, Richard Moses, and children, Dr. Henry Moses, a surgeon, and Mary Deakin, an RN at Tuomey. Richard served on the Tuomey board for more than 25 years, and has remained such a dedicated supporter of this hospital. We’re so blessed to have this family in our community.

If you can’t make it down to visit the trees, check them out on-line. There’s a great slide show at www.tuomey.com, showcasing the opening night’s event. It’s worth a visit.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Tuomey Home Health Wins BIG

When it comes to Home Health care, I’ve always known we have the best in the business. Now we have the national accolades to prove it. If you didn’t get a chance to read Belton White’s article in last week’s Item, click here to read the article.

Headed up by Kathy McMaster and Kim Price, you won’t find a more comprehensive program anywhere. If it can be done with a doctor’s order in your home, we can take care of it. And apparently better than just about anyone. Tuomey’s Home Health team was recognized recently with a 2009 Summit Award from Press Ganey, a company that partners with more than 10,000 healthcare facilities to rate and survey customer satisfaction.

Tuomey was one of only 74 winners at the national meeting, and the ONLY one who provides in-home services. The Tuomey program was recognized for maintaining an extremely high level of patient satisfaction over a three-year period. In fact, their patient satisfaction scores were in the 95th percentile or higher for those three years.

In addition to this incredible honor, the Home Health team was also named to the 2009 HomeCare Elite, a compilation of the top performing home health agencies in the U.S. This annual review identifies the top 25 percent of agencies and then highlights the top 500 within that group. Winners are ranked by an analysis of quality outcomes and improvement, as well as financial performance.

Manager Kim Price gives all the credit to her staff, but I want to take this time to applaud everyone – from the top of this department down. You give incredible clinical care, obviously, but that extra touch is really what makes you all shine. You are focused on the patient and his or her family; you always seem to work with a joyful spirit; and the patient comes first –every single time.

If you’re not really sure what all Home Health can do, check us out at www.tuomey.com/outreach/inhomeservices. I promise – you won’t find anyone who can do it better!