Free Press – December 6, 2007

Quakertown Hospital Annual Review

Dear Friends,

Good morning. A few weeks ago, I met with Ed Nawrocki and Deborah Willey at St. Luke’s Quakertown Hospital to catch up with the institution. Narocki is the local hospital’s President and Willey is the Director of Development. In November, they invited the who’s who of the Quakertown region for a “State of the Hospital” report. It must have been quite a gathering because 45 attended including two state representatives, a state senator, the Quakertown school superintendent and municipal leaders.

The good news is that St. Luke’s Quakertown Hospital is in excellent shape…from both a service and financial point of view. There is no bad news.

Running a community hospital must keep administrators hopping. Ed began by pointing out that 45 million Americans are not insured…770,000 in Pennsylvania alone. “We’re not as healthy as a country as we could be,” he began, emphasizing that the numbers for overweight and obese are out of control in the U.S.

Not all hospitals are healthy. In fact, Warminster Hospital died. Each year, 15,000 visited Warminster’s emergency room. In its final year, Warminster experienced 4,000 admissions. Where do patients go when a community hospital closes?

Abington, Doylestown, and Grandview Hospitals immediately felt the pinch. St. Luke’s Quakertown’s behavioral health department has too. As a result of Warminster’s closing, Abington and Doylestown Hospitals face expensive building projects where each bed costs $1 million.

I was fascinated with St. Luke’s Quakertown Hospital’s ambulance service, which operates 24/7 and logs between 50 and 60,000 miles each year. Kermit Gorr is Chief of the service here. He told me that many ambulance companies have closed because of the shortage of volunteers.

The ambulance corps of Dublin, Perkasie, and Upper Perkiomen closed and residents now rely upon St. Luke’s Quakertown and Grandview. St. Luke’s Quakertown operates five ambulance crews, costing $350,000 yearly. Gorr says that 7.5 minutes is the average time for one of his ambulance crews to get to the door of a distressed 911 call. I was impressed with the speed.

Ed Narocki was full of information. He told me that physicians are no longer fleeing southeast Pennsylvania because of the cost of malpractice insurance. Several reasons account for the positive change. First, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law, which stops venue shopping for malpractice suits. And second, hospitals (St. Luke’s Quakertown included) are now employing physicians.

According to the Press Ganey organization, which rates 1,500 hospitals for quality and efficiency, Quakertown’s emergency room is in the top 10 percent for patient satisfaction. Ed was pleased that 73 indicators are equal to or better than expected.

“Our hospital is the second fastest growing hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs for the second consecutive year,” he continued. “And for the third year in a row, we’ve operated in the black…with a $711,000 operating margin.

“We have a five star (out of five) rating for knee replacements, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, and joint replacements,” he added. “We’re the best in Bucks County for joint replacement surgery.

“Our Emergency Room wait time averages only 15 minutes…less if the case is life threatening,” Ed reported. “Our length of stay, readmission, and mortality rates are better than expected.”

I asked him whether the E.R. offers RU 486 [the so called morning after pill which prevents conception] to rape victims? “Yes, we do,” Ed answered.

There are 400 employees at the hospital…250 physicians on the medical staff and 80 nurses. “We added between 35 and 40 doctors to the staff last year. There are 20 employees who are military veterans…two just returned from the Iraq War.”

Next April, St. Luke’s Quakertown breaks ground for a presence in the Upper Perkiomen Valley [Route 663 and the Gerryville Pike]. Ed expects the facility to open in January 2009.

And there are plans for expansion in Quakertown. Ed told me that the hospital will build a 20,000 square foot, three story building on Route 309 behind Pep Boys. It will house physicians and hopes to open in December 2008.

It costs big bucks to run a first class hospital and St. Luke’s Quakertown has ambitious fund raising goals…$1.8 million for the fiscal year ending June 2008. It’s gone very well. The community raised $182,000 in 2005; $229,000 in 2006; and $939,000 for this year.

And so has the endowment. “In 2003, the hospital endowment was $400, 000,” Ed told me. “Today, it’s $1.8 million. We expect it to grow to $4 million by 2010.”

The hospital handles about 6,000 charity cases each year, costing $2 million. So the community needs to keep St. Luke’s Quakertown on its front burner. We want to keep good things happening.

Sincerely,

Charles Meredith