Hospital looks back at busy year

North Valley Hospital last year recorded more than 45,600 outpatient visits.

The hospital saw about 1,600 hospital admissions, completed 2,400 surgical procedures, had 8,278 emergency room visits and delivered 556 babies, according to the hospital’s recently released 2020 Community Report.

Most of the number remained relatively steady to the year prior, however, the number of outpatient visits increased by about 270 from 2018.

North Valley Hospital CEO Kevin Abel describes last year as one of growth and expanded patient care at the Hospital,

While we experienced high patient volumes and more surgeries and births in 2019, our staff showed professionalism and embodied our Planetree philosophy of patient-centered care no matter how busy things were,” he says in the report. “From patient access and patient care to discharge and the billing process, our team at North Valley Hospital accomplished a lot together this year.”

Abel highlighted a fundraising campaign to bring Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation service, a machine that treats severe depression in adults, to North Valley. The North Valley Hospital Foundation raised $380,000 to purchase and install the TMS equipment at North Valley Behavioral Health

In addition, he noted, the surgical services department updated its 10-year-old DaVinci robot with a new model, and installed the Mako robot providing advanced 3D imagining technology for orthopedic surgeries.

Two awards at the state and national level recognized the hospital for the care it provides. The Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence Award recognized the hospital’s achievement of reaching the 95th percentile in patient experience scores for inpatient care.

The Montana Rural Healthcare Performance Improvement Network’s Quality Improvement Award specifically recognized North Valley for the hospital’s focus on sepsis care. North Valley improved early identification and treatment of sepsis in order to improve health outcomes for patients and decrease the mortality rate from sepsis, according to the report.

Jane Karas, chair of the North Valley board of directors, said the hospital is a stable community nonprofit organization here to provide care for the community.

“The North Valley Hospital Board of Directors wants to recognize the hard work of our caring staff and providers, who provide high-quality services to all patients,” she said in the report. “This year, as the hospital was busier than ever, our team remained focused on our Planetree philosophy.”

North Valley and its clinics have 464 employees. According to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, every job at the hospital supports another 1.03 jobs in the county, the report notes. The clinics serve more than 25,000 patients per year across all locations.

Financially, the hospital provided $894,000 in charity care for services for those who are deemed unable to pay for the cost of the services they receive.

The hospital provided $2.27 million in uncompensated care to patients who did not demonstrate their inability to pay.

Through financial and in-kind contributions, the hospital provided community support in the amount of $466,000.

The report also points to outside funding that allowed it to add to its services and care.

The hospital received a $6,000 grant from the Phyllis & Dennis Washington Foundation to fund the Food RX program. The hospital raised $47,766 through the Whitefish Community Foundation Great Fish Challenge to purchase repositioning mattresses.

North Valley’s annual report is available at https://www.krh.org/data/content/File/NVH-AnnualRep-2020-FINAL-e.pdf.