NEWBERRY — Newberry County Memorial Hospital will be a platinum sponsor for the second annual Newberry Senior Expo, being held May 10 at Piedmont Technical College, the hospital board announced at its most recent board of trustees meeting.
Robin Kruger, director of NCMH’s Wellness Center and director of Case Management will be staffing the event.
During the expo, Kruger has arranged for staff members to provide a demonstration of the “Balance with Ben” and “Chair Aerobics” classes that are offered at the Wellness Center. More than 200 people are expected to attend the expo.
In other business, it was also announced that tickets are still available for the 2017 Friends of the Foundation Dinner, scheduled for 6 p.m. April 21 at the Friends Building, 901 Friend St. Tickets are $50 each and $25 for board members.
This year’s dinner will take attendees on a journey to the 1970s. Metz Culinary is catering the event and musical entertainment from “No Holds Barred Band” will be provided.
It was also announced that Kay Traylor, director of Medical/Surgical/ICU Department, and Dr. James Loging with Palmetto Bone & Joint spoke to the Women Involved in Rural Electrification (WIRE) organization on Feb. 7 on the Back on Track and anterior hip program.
The WIRE organization is the charitable arm of Newberry Electric Cooperative.
The trustees were also told that in 2017 NCMH is continuing to make improvements in needed areas. Work was just completed on the installation of a new 64 slice CT to replace the 16 slice CT. Flooring and painting have also been improved in this area. NCMH has also finalized the Echo lease, which will allow less down time.
CEO Bruce Baldwin extended a welcome to Dr. Conrad Manayan who joined NCMH in February.
“As of today, I believe that Dr. Manayan has performed five or six surgeries. He has been well received in surgery and by Medical/Surgical/ ICU nursing. He is an excellent surgeon and a good medical staff leader,” said Baldwin.
He also announced that Sally Potts has joined the hospital as the Chief Nursing Officer.
“Sally has been very busy the past six weeks and is fitting in nicely,” said Baldwin.
The Foundation’s Employee Campaign, held March 13 through March 17, saw an increase in employee participation from 134 last year to 142 at this year’s event.
“We would like to thank Harriett Wells Kegler and Bob Burch for attending the luncheon on March 17. We do not have a final dollar amount raised by this year’s campaign at this time,” said Baldwin.
The hospital also continues to show strong performance in inpatient and outpatient core measures.
The newest I/P core measure has shown good improvement and was at 71 percent in November. The Emergency Department’s volumes were at 1,865 visits in February, with turnaround times remaining good for the month.
The hospital saw a total of 144 discharges for the month of February, a slight decrease in the prior year’s number of 147 discharges. There was also an increase in total patient days.
In February, patient days brought in a total of 577 days, which exceeded the budgeted number and prior year’s recorded number of total patient days.
Last year, there was a total of 556 patient days. Total general surgical service encounters also brought in larger numbers for February, with a total of 271 encounters recorded. Last year, 233 encounters were recorded. The hospital had a budgeted number of 225 surgical encounters in February.