Annual Report Demonstrates Financials, Quality, Safety and More
HILLSDALE, Mich.—Hillsdale Hospital released it’s 2020 Annual Report to the community on Tuesday, showcasing results and successes from its most recent fiscal year, which ended June 30.
“The past year has been an eventful one,” JJ Hodshire, president and chief executive officer, said. “Our team has once again shown its strength, demonstrating excellent patient care, even in the midst of the most challenging months our industry has faced in our lifetime.”
The report covers the hospital’s five pillars of work—people, service, quality, finance and growth—and features patient stories with links to video testimonials.
“Throughout the past year, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have continued to serve our community and provide access to much-needed healthcare, coronavirus-related or not,” Hodshire said.
The number of such instances of care delivered from July 2019 to June 2020 totaled in the hundreds of thousands. Hospital admissions included 376 patients in the psychiatric unit, 377 in the short-stay rehab and long-term care units known as McGuire and MacRitchie, and 1,437 acute care inpatients. The hospital’s team delivered 352 babies and performed 2,066 surgeries. On the outpatient side, the hospital provided 100,301 visits, as well as 19,058 in the emergency room where wait times decreased significantly.
“In the past year, we saw improvement in our patients’ experience, particularly in the emergency room and with Hillsdale Home Care,” John Robertson, chief quality, information and technology officer, said. “We also saw an increase in the number of patients who said that our nurses always treated them with courtesy and respect, listened carefully to them and explained things in a way they could understand.”
Despite major financial losses as a result of COVID-19, the hospital was able to end the fiscal year with a shortfall of just half a million dollars, roughly.
“COVID-19 dealt a significant blow to hospital finances around the country, with some facilities even closing since the onset of the pandemic,” Mark Gross, vice president and chief financial officer, said. “We entered the pandemic with a strong cash position, much better than average in rural healthcare. Even so, the decline in volume and the prohibition of elective procedures due to executive orders in late spring pushed us toward a significant operating loss. The CARES Act and other pandemic relief funds helped us weather that storm in the short-run, though we are being conservative with those funds as final audit rules and eligibility changes remain unsettled.”
Critical to the hospital’s growth in the past year were strategic partnerships and technology improvements. Among those include a new partnership with Hospice of Hillsdale County, as well as Sparrow Labs in Lansing becoming Hillsdale Hospital’s reference lab and providing lab management services. In the onset of the pandemic, Hillsdale Hospital also launched Virtual Visits to expand access to care for primary and outpatient specialty care.
“Strategic partnerships and technology improvements like those achieved in the past year have ultimately benefited our patients, their quality of care and their access to care,” Hodshire said. “We are proud of the steps we have taken to manage the health of our community during the COVID-19 pandemic and we look forward to seizing the growth opportunities before us in the next year, all to the benefit of our patients, their families and our community.”
To view the full annual report, visit www.hillsdalehospital.com/report.
