Kadlec Regional Medical Center: Ready to meet community’s needs
This year looks to be another milestone year in the history of Kadlec Regional Medical Center. We will celebrate the completion of three significant construction projects: a four-story expansion of the River Pavilion, a 600-space parking garage on the medical center campus and the opening of a new primary care clinic in West Kennewick. We will also honor and recognize the accomplishments of some key Kadlec leaders this year, including retiring chief executive Rand Wortman.
I want to thank Rand for his expertise and counsel and for what he has brought to Kadlec and our community. We live in a healthier community thanks to Rand and our community board of directors, who set the direction of the medical center, and whose vision has Kadlec extremely well equipped to meet the needs of our community and region for years to come. The focus of our leadership has been with a clear directive, “to do what’s best to improve the health and health care services in our community and our region.”
There is no question that health care in our community has changed dramatically over the years, and it has definitely changed for the better.
Just think that before the year 2001, if you needed major heart care such as open heart surgery, you had to leave the community.
But since then, services like cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, cancer and other specialty care has expanded in our community, allowing patients to be able to stay close to home for their care at Kadlec.
The affiliation with Providence brings us many important capabilities and qualities. Foremost is a similar vision to ours — to provide safe, high quality, excellent patient care to everyone, especially those who are in need.
Our clinicians have access to experts across all spectrums of health care, allowing for collaboration and innovation. In the Northwest, it is with people at well regarded hospitals like Swedish in Seattle, Saint Mary in Walla Walla and Sacred Heart in Spokane. Our information technology capabilities allow our patients and staff to connect more readily, bringing prompt, efficient and effective care.
I want to take a moment to focus on our efforts to improve patient safety and quality. Simply put, we have a never-ending commitment to strive for excellence. We are honored to earn the highest rating for safety and quality from the Leapfrog Group, a national organization pushing for quality improvement among our nation’s hospitals. Kadlec is proud to be one of only two hospitals in Washington to earn an “A” rating from Leapfrog for four consecutive years. Kadlec is part of a system-wide Providence focus on safety and quality titled High Reliability. Each of our 3,300 caregivers is in the midst of training and education on the tenants of making sure safety and quality are in everything we do at Kadlec. It’s not something that comes and goes. It is always with us.
So too is our commitment to training the health care workers of tomorrow. Kadlec has a rich history of investing in the development of nurses, technologists and with the recent start of our family medicine residency program, physicians. We value our partnerships with all levels of education in our community, from area elementary schools who utilize Kadlec Academy, the high school internship program with the Richland School District, and of course our key higher education partnerships led by Washington State University, Columbia Basin College and the University of Washington.
Kadlec is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of our community and region well into the future. I want to thank our skilled team of doctors, nurses and entire caregiver team for their compassionate focus and commitment to the patients we serve.
Our team looks forward to carrying out this work every day, 365 days a year.
This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 10:33 PM with the headline "Kadlec Regional Medical Center: Ready to meet community’s needs."