2021 Spring Inspire Newsletter

A PUBLICATION OF PEACEHEALTH ST. JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION

inspire Spring 2021

KEEPING FAMILIES CLOSE TO HOME At PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center our mission is to provide safe, high-quality and patient-centered care for all women and children in Whatcom County. Recently, a group of very generous PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation donors stepped forward to purchase six Giraffe OmniBed incubators to help us expand the scope of services we can provide in our special care nursery. Special thanks to Bob and Lisa Bailey for purchasing two incubators – your generous matching gift encouraged others to contribute toward the remaining four Giraffe Omnibeds. We could not be more grateful!

A special care nursery, sometimes called a Level 2 NICU, can care for babies born at 32 weeks gestational age or greater (often referred to as moderately preterm babies) or newborns who are full-term but require close monitoring or intravenous antibiotics after birth. PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center is a licensed Level 2 NICU, but we have not been able to offer all the services allowed under our licensure. Currently, we can only care for infants 34 weeks gestation or greater in our special care nursery.

The Giraffe OmniBed is an all-in-one piece of equipment that will enable our interdisciplinary team of caregivers to stabilize and fully care for newborns 32 weeks and greater. Our goal is to have the six Foundation-funded incubators and other necessary infrastructure and staffing in place by the end of 2021, enabling us to fully provide critical newborn care to the full extent of the Level 2 licensure.

I would like to sincerely thank our generous donors who are making it possible to keep these tiny newborns close to home until they can safely live at home. Your gift of critical care close to home is priceless!

Keila Y. Torres, JD, DrNP Service Line Director, Nursing Administration

In this issue: Your 2020 gifts at work!

PEACEHEALTH ST. JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION BOARD MEMBERS Michael Bayless Barkley Company

Brad Bearden, OD

Optometric Physicians NW

Grant Dykstra

Whatcom Educational Credit Union

Amy Esary

Community Food Co-op Bellingham

Andrew Heinz

Barron Smith Daugert, PLLC

John Huntley

Mills Electric Company

Frank Imhof

IMCO General Construction

Donna Inglis

Community Volunteer

Katie Jansen JIJ Corporation

Lynnette Jensen Community Volunteer

John MacGregor, MD

PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Cardiovascular Center

Mike Perry

Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC

Charles Prosper

PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center

OUTPATIENT PALLIATIVE CARE CAMPAIGN SUCCESS In the summer of 2018, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation launched a $2.5 million campaign to bring outpatient palliative care to Whatcom County. We have successfully completed the campaign and secured the first five years of operational funding for the PeaceHealth St. Joseph Outpatient Palliative Care program.

This program is truly thriving. The patients currently receiving care report less pain, fewer troubling symptoms and an increased enjoyment of life. They are much less likely to seek help at the emergency room now than prior to having access to consistent medical supervision as well as spiritual, emotional and practical support.

The outpatient palliative care served more than 400 patients in its first two years, far exceeding initial goals and projections.

The amazing success of this program confirms the need that seriously ill patients have for skilled, compassionate, whole person care and speaks to the ability of our palliative care team to grow the program as demand increases. PeaceHealth has committed to supporting outpatient palliative care beyond the five-year Foundation and community investment, ensuring that team-oriented care of our chronically and seriously ill patients will remain available here in Whatcom County for the foreseeable future.

Thank you once again to the donors who supported this important project!

Penny Roberts

PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center

Marcus Schumacher Enfield Farms

Jon Sitkin

Foundation Board President Chmelik Sitkin and Davis PS

Jason Stoane, MD, MBA, FSCCT Mt. Baker Imaging

Shaun Sullivan, MD

Bellingham Anesthesia Associates

Bob Tull

Community Volunteer

Michelle VanDellen, CPA Moss Adams, LLP

Lori Venners LVI Design

Rob Walker Walker Group Ventures

Scott Whitman

Whitman Holdings, LLC

Anna Williams

Community Volunteer

ALL GIFTS MADE TO PEACEHEALTH ST. JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION STAY LOCAL, RIGHT HERE IN WHATCOM COUNTY.

New Mural brightens the Childbirth Center Artist Mary Ennes Davis has created a beautiful mural in our Childbirth Center honoring nurse Julie MacPhee, who worked at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center for nearly 20 years. The mural is a gift from the MacPhee family to Julie’s fellow caregivers and the community she loved.

A lover of trees, flowers and birds, Julie found joy in nature and the beauty of the Northwest. She loved working the night shift at the Childbirth Center and was a Daisy Award recipient, a highly esteemed honor given to nurses of excellence in their field.

This new mural and other artwork seen throughout the Medical Center is made possible by gifts to PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation’s Healing Through Art Fund.

The Foundation raises funds and accepts fine art donations to support the art fund.

Please call (360) 788-6866 for more information on Healing Through Art.

Foundation funds Schwartz Rounds The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially difficult for healthcare workers. With support from PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation, our Physician Well-Being Committee and Missions Services department have collaborated to launch Schwartz Rounds, a nationally recognized program that provides a structured forum where all staff, clinical and non-clinical, can come together regularly to discuss the emotional and social aspects of working in healthcare.

PEACEHEALTH ST. JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER MAINTAINS TOP SAFETY GRADE

The purpose of Schwartz Rounds is to understand the challenges and rewards that are intrinsic to providing care, not to solve problems or to focus on the clinical aspects of patient care. Rounds help staff feel more supported in their jobs, allowing them the time and space to reflect on their roles. Evidence shows that staff who attend Schwartz Rounds feel less stressed and isolated.

The underlying premise for Schwartz Rounds is that the compassion shown by staff can make all the difference to a patient’s experience of care, but that in order to provide compassionate care staff must feel supported in their work.

Thank you for helping us care for our caregiver heroes!

Advanced Care of Patients with Cognitive Impairment Caring for patients with cognitive impairments like dementia can prove challenging for any caregiver, even when the patient is a parent or spouse. In a hospital inpatient setting, where the patient is temporarily removed from familiar and comforting surroundings, reducing the stress and agitation of cognitively impaired adults is especially important for the safety of all concerned with their care.

Mullane Harrington, MPH, BSN, RN, PMH-BC, a clinical nurse educator at St. Joe’s, has developed and piloted a program to address the unique needs of individuals with cognitive impairment who come to our hospital in crisis. The program has two main components: empowering staff with education on advanced caregiving strategies for this patient population and providing access to diversional activities.

PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation is pleased to support this important program by providing supplies for hands-on activities, and iPod music players with music divided into decades so that patients can listen to songs from their teenage years. Guides for staff include quick tips for selecting diversional activities based on the patient’s verbal and fine motor skills. For example, for a patient who is nonverbal and holds utensils with a palmar grasp, the most appropriate activity might be sorting large, easy-to-grab items.

The program is so successful that it has been recognized in American Nurse Today magazine as a national standard for best practice in caring for cognitively impaired adults! Congratulations to Mullane and thank you, donors, for helping to keep our caregivers safe and patients happy and engaged.

We are pleased to share with you that PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center has maintained an “A” rating on the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades website, www.hospitalsafetygrade.org.

The rankings are a public service provided by The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit organization committed to monitoring data on safety, quality, and resource use in order to push the healthcare industry forward.

The group assigns “A,” “B,” “C,” “D” and “F” letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the U.S. It is the nation’s only rating focused entirely on patient safety — preventable errors, accidents, injuries and infections.

PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center’s “A” rating is an assurance to our patients that they will receive safe, high-quality, evidence-based compassionate care.

As a PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center philanthropic investor, you play a huge role in providing our clinicians with the equipment, resources and training they need to ensure the best possible outcomes for our patients.

FAMILY REUNITED THANKS TO YOUR GENEROSITY You probably do not know the Gamboa family, but they are very grateful for you. They asked us to tell you thanks.

Several months ago, Mr. Gamboa (center in the photo) arrived to visit his daughter for his first time outside of the Philippines.

Upon arrival, his daughter noticed a lump on his neck. A visit to urgent care ended in a referral to our Cancer Center. A few months later, Mr. Gamboa was hospitalized with terminal illness.

In the hospital Mr. Gamboa shared with the Hospice Liaison that he did not want to die in Bellingham. He would like to go back home and be surrounded with all his children and grandchildren.

A team of caregivers spanning multiple disciplines and several departments got involved, and ultimately the request was brought to the Foundation for approval. Thanks to your generous support, we had the necessary resources in hand to reunite the Gamboa family. The flight was booked.

With the flight being two days out, Mr. Gamboa’s care team wanted him to have a comfortable, homelike place to stay while his trip logistics, medication management, etc. were being planned, so he was admitted to Hospice House for two days of care.

We were blessed to hear that he made it home safely. His family shared this photo along with their deepest gratitude.

Cardiovascular Center earns prestigious Transcatheter Valve Certification The PeaceHealth St. Joseph Cardiovascular Center is known for providing leading-edge cardiac care, and it’s just added a new esteemed distinction to its list of recognitions: Transcatheter Valve Certification from the American College of Cardiology (ACC). It’s the first health care provider in Washington state and among fewer than 30 in the nation to achieve this standard of excellence.

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI, also known as TAVR) is a minimally invasive heart procedure to replace a narrowed aortic valve that fails to open properly.

The PeaceHealth St. Joseph Cardiovascular Center completed its first TAVI procedure in 2015 and celebrated its 250th procedure in February 2021. Completed in concert between cardiac interventionalists and cardiothoracic surgeons, TAVI is a lasting solution that helps patients with aortic valve stenosis beat the 50% odds of dying in two years if their condition is left untreated. It also improves quality of life.

Eric King, DO, PeaceHealth cardiac interventionalist, said, “This is a wonderful recognition of the quality outcomes of our cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery programs. TAVI offers an important alternative to traditional open-heart surgery for our patients with significant valvular heart disorders.”

Your philanthropic support provides equipment and advanced technology to keep our Cardiovascular Center at the leading edge of heart and vascular care and ensures that everyone needing care receives it, regardless of their ability to pay. Thank you!

2901 Squalicum Parkway, Bellingham, WA 98225 360-788-6866 | peacehealth.org/StJosephFoundation If you do not wish to receive fundraising materials from PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation, please contact us at 360-788-6866 or infofoundation@peacehealth.org.

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