CEO: Hospital Week 2024
May 13, 2024
(Published as a Letter to the Editor in The Carrollton Democrat)
By Scott Thoreson, Carroll County Memorial Hospital Chief Executive Officer
National Hospital Week takes place this week, May 12-18, and highlights the important role that hospitals play across the country in helping keep people healthy and addressing the needs of the sick and injured.
The origins of “National Hospital Day” goes back to 1921 to encourage trust in hospitals in the wake of the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak when approximately 675,000 people died in our country from this disease. Hospitals didn’t have the best of reputations back in those days and hospitals were regarded as places where patients went to die. U.S. President Warren G. Harding honored the famous nurse, Florence Nightingale, and picked May 12, her birthday, to honor the famed nurse who set initial standards for hospital quality during the Crimean War of 1854. National Hospital Day was expanded to National Hospital Week in 1953 to give hospitals more time to educate the public about medical care.
Many things have changed in the last 100 years and hospitals have a much better reputation as places where people come in for service and the vast majority of them get discharged to home. Hospitals are an important part of the community’s infrastructure with the services they provide, along with the employment that is provided in the hospital. Many other businesses and the growth of the community are impacted by the presence of, or lack of, a hospital. At CCMH we employ 263 individuals and are the largest employer in Carroll County. We have approximately 228 full-time equivalents (FTEs) which equates to those that work an approximate 40-hour work week or greater. Our payroll for our last completed fiscal year was $16 million and our benefit cost was $3.5 million. Our employees circulate their earnings locally, and a generally accepted method is to assume that these dollars churn 3 times before they leave the area. Thus, hospital employees are responsible for approximately $47 million annually in economic vitality for Carrollton and Carroll County.
Our employees are certainly the key to our past and future success. There is a great deal of longevity amongst our employee group. Currently, our longest employed CCMH employee has been with us for 42 years. As a group, our employees total 2,087 years of experience working as a CCMH employee, which breaks down to an average of about 8 years per CCMH employee. There is a lot of comfort for patients who have continuity of caregiving personnel, and it also says a lot about the organization when employees decide to stay.
Our employees are the main reason that we were once again honored this year, for the second year in a row, as a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital in the country by Chartis, a consulting company that works with the National Rural Health Association. There are about 1,300 Critical Access Hospitals in the US, 35 of them in Missouri. There was only one other critical access hospital in Missouri named to the Top 100 in 2024 and that was Cox Barton County Hospital in Lamar. We were ultimately named a Top 20 Critical Access Hospital in 2023, and in September the Top 20 for 2024 will be named.
During Hospital Week this year, the following events are on tap to recognize our employees and demonstrate to the community the benefits that come with having a thriving and vibrant hospital in our midst.
As always, we plan to recognize our employees with activities such as a breakfast hosted by the Department Directors, games, gifts, carnival duck races and a special visit by Foley’s Sweet Treats.
We will host our 13th Annual Community Picnic from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, May 17. During the event, we will also be unveiling our history wall, which highlights the hospital’s first 60 years that shaped it into what it is today.
I hope this article has provided a bit more of an insight about Hospital Week and why it is such a big deal. I would encourage you to reach out to your friends, family members and neighbors who work at CCMH and express your appreciation to them. We consider our patients as our neighbors and feel as if we are taking care of family members when we interact with our patients. I wish you good health!
More in this Series:
CEO: Community Health Needs Initial Assessment (Published April 24, 2024)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-community-health-needs-initial-assessment
CEO: Cybersecurity (Published February 14, 2024)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-cybersecurity
CEO: End of Year Reflections (Published December 29, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-end-of-the-year-reflections
CEO: Coding Matters (Published November 22, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-coding-matters
CEO: Maternity Care Desert (Published October 25, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-maternity-care-desert
CEO: Rural Emergency Hospitals (Published September 20, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-rural-emergency-hospitals
CEO: Primary Care Provider (Published August 23, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-primary-care-provider
CEO: Supply Shortages (Published June 28, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-supply-shortages
CEO: CCMH Named Top 20 Critical Access Hospital (Published June 14, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-ccmh-named-top-20-critical-access-hospital
CEO: Hospital Week 2023 (Published May 3, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-hospital-week-2023
CEO: Prior Authorizations (Published April 5, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-prior-authorizations
CEO: Staff Shortage and Open Positions (Published February 8, 2023)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-staff-shortage-and-open-positions
CEO: End of Year 2022 (Published December 14, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-end-of-2022
CEO: Purpose of the Foundation (Published November 10, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/purpose-of-the-foundation
CEO: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (Published September 28, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-health-insurance-portability-and-accountability-act
CEO: CCMH Providers (Published August 24, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-ccmh-providers
CEO: Financial Assistance (Published July 20, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-financial-assistance
CEO: Social Determinants of Health (Published June 29, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-social-determinants-of-health
CEO: National Hospital Week (Published May 11, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-national-hospital-week
CEO: Why Healthcare is Expensive (Published May 4, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-why-healthcare-is-expensive
CEO: A Hospital is Still a Business (Published March 16, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-a-hospital-is-still-a-business
CEO: Different Types of Hospital Ownership (Published February 1, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-different-types-of-hospital-ownership
CEO: Holiday Message (Published December 20, 2021)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-holiday-message