Erlanger at Hutcheson positions itself for more growth.
The hospital announces its added several doctors in Cardiology, Pulmonology and Emergency Medicine.
This comes as the Erlanger at Hutcheson June financial report shows marked improvement.
We showed you Erlanger at Hutcheson second floor renovations in June.
Cindy Hoggard, V.P. Patient Care, "We hope to start on the third floor next so that we can expand patients to that floor as well as we grow and volume increases."
Now along with the new paint and artwork...comes new doctors.
"It means that they'll be able to get a full range of services here," says Erlanger at Hutcheson President and CEO Roger Forgey.
He tells me they've added several specialists in Cardiology, Pulmonology and Emergency Medicine.
He hopes that along with the doctors will come referrals.
Forgey, "We're a community hospital. That's really what we want to be for the community that we serve, but you have to have those sub specialists to be able to do that, so we're adding those back as quickly as possible."
And now people who come to Erlanger at Hutcheson's ER will be treated by EmCare specialists...that's the same emergency physician group that serves hospitals in the Erlanger System.
Forgey, "They brought us many board certified emergency physicians. We believe that's going to give us a higher level of emergency care provided here. We see about 36,000 patients a year, making it the second or third largest emergency department in the area, so we feel like we need to provide the best quality we can."
Ongoing changes appear to be working already.
June's financial report show a loss of 171,000...the best numbers since January of 2010.
Forgey, "We still have a long way to go, but we're stabilizing the ship and we've got doctors that are committing to come back and we're happy with the performance thus far."
And the hospital looks forward to an even better performance to come.
Erlanger at Hutcheson also hopes to profit from a dispute between Blue Cross Blue Shield and Memorial Hospital which leaves Memorial out of one of the insurer's networks.
