NEWS-TIMES WHIDBEY
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2011 | Vol. 112, No. 104 | WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM | 75¢
Living: Making quilts for wounded warriors. A10
Forest lovers fight disc golf proposal By JUSTIN BURNETT Staff reporter
Jessie Stensland / Whidbey News-Times
Jeannie Hucko, a nurse in Whidbey General Hospital’s critical care unit, checks on patient James O’Neil during his recent hospital stay. The department practices hourly patient rounding, which is a structured way of checking on patients and their needs. As a result, the department has received particularly positive survey responses from patients.
Courtesy equals cash at Whidbey General By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
It won’t be long until patient surveys will have a financial impact on critical access hospitals like Whidbey General Hospital, according to Teresa Fulton, director of quality and patient safety at the hospital. This inevitability has pushed hospital officials to give even more emphasis to an ongoing effort aimed at teaching personnel to communicate effectively and courteously with patients and their families. “It’s about meeting the patients’ needs before they have to ask for help,” said Jan Maham, manager of the hospital’s critical care unit. Her department has received especially good survey responses, which she believes are due to the department’s tireless system of patient rounding and a communication method known by the acronym AIDET. Under the new health
care law, Medicare will soon starting cutting payments to most hospitals in the nation, the so-called “prospective payment system” hospitals, and financially reward others based, in part, on how patients say they were treated. The new payment system won’t immediately affect critical access hospitals, but Fulton expects that it will soon. “It just makes sense that Medicare is going to do that with us, too,” Fulton said. Critical access hospitals normally receive a higher level of reimbursement from Medicare under a federal program created to reduce hospital closures, especially in rural areas. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, known as HCAHPS and pronounced H-Caps, is “the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients’ perspectives of hospital care,” according to the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid website. The survey contains 18 core questions about aspects of patients’ hospital experiences, specifically covering communication with nurses and doctors, the responsiveness of hospital staff, the cleanliness and quietness of the hospital environment, pain management, communication about medicines, discharge information, overall rating of hospital, and whether they would recommend the hospital. One of the questions, for example, is “How often did nurses communicate well with patients?” The patients offered a range of responses, from never to always. But only the “always” response counts as positive for the hospital’s average. Like everything involving Medicare, the formulas and factors are complicated. But in general, Fulton said hospitals with low scores will SEE SURVEY, A4
It wasn’t a hole-in-one but a proposal for an 18-hole discgolf course at Rhododendron Park on Central Whidbey is all but sunk. Danni Baugher, director of the Oak Harbor-based Whidbey Island Disc Golf Club, said the organization is going to start looking at alternative locations besides the Island County park just east of Coupeville on Highway 20. The decision was made early last week in the wake of an unexpected and withering round of protest emails submitted to county leaders; communications which Baugher said are based on misperceptions and half truths. “It’s disappointing,” Baugher said. “It’s just a shame.” In late November, the discgolf club made a proposal to build an 18-hole course at the Island County park. The group has a course at Fort Nugent Park in Oak Harbor, but it’s small and the organization wants a more modern and challenging facility. The sport is similar to golf but instead of clubs and balls, players use discs that resemble Frisbees and shoot for metal baskets rather than holes in the ground. According to the group’s original written proposal, the course would have been constructed along existing loop trails in a 40-acre area. The document specified two concrete tee-off pads per hole, each about 12-feet by six-feet, the installation of directional signs, a message board and garbage cans.
“Absurd” plan Although many of the details of the original plan have changed following discussions with county park officials, from reducing the
Justin Burnett / Whidbey News-Times
In front of other Whidbey Island Disc Golf Club members, Gage VonHaden hurls a disc in Fort Nugent Park in Oak Harbor. The group’s hope to build a course at Rhododendron County Park on Central Whidbey appears doomed. number and size of tee-off pads to a strict tree-cutting ban in the ecologically sensitive area, the proposal birthed a firestorm of protest from park enthusiasts. Saturday, Dec. 17, the Whidbey Camano Land Trust released an “Action Alert” on the plan that resulted in scores of emails to the Island County Board of Commissioners and county park officials. The group made it clear it was against the proposal, saying “it will cause irreparable damage to this irreplaceable part of our Island’s natural heritage.” Most were simple objections, urging the commission-
ers to reject the proposal and seek alternative locations. But others were much more stinging, saying that even considering the idea was “frivolous and irresponsible” or “absurd.” Rhododendron Park is credited with being a rare and sensitive forest, containing old-growth trees up to 350 years old. It’s believed to be one of just five quality SEE DISC, A11