What a busy, great month!

It is hard to believe that we are finishing this week in March! Time truly does seem to fly. I’m happy to share some of the incredible  activities.

One of the difficulties we’ve experienced in working to control health costs for our patients and our own employees is in the area of pharmaceuticals/drugs. As you may be aware, this area of health care expenses is the fastest growing segment of our costs. I’m pleased to share Kettering Health Network’s hiring of Jim O’Donnell as our network executive director of Pharmacy. He will coordinate our network-wide pharmacy program. I met with Jim a few weeks ago and am pleased that he will help us turn the curve on this expensive area.

I want to thank Anita Adams, COO of Kettering Medical Center, and Nate Brandstater, president of Kettering College, for their undertaking of a major effort to facilitate bringing more college clinical rotations into Kettering Medical Center System. We have a tremendous opportunity to train and be part of our college’s student development program.

Congratulations to our sister team at Grandview Medical Center, who opened a major expansion to their Emergency Department on February 5. This was an incredible project, expertly managed to completion months ahead of a normal construction schedule. This was only possible because of Grandview’s and the network’s interaction with our Dayton officials and planning department. Congratulations to the Grandview team!

On February 6, I joined Verily, a Google company, and a representative of Premier Health to announce the creation and activation of a new company, OneFifteen, which is being established to rethink and transform opioid addiction treatment here in Dayton. More will be shared on this in the future. OneFifteen is named for the 115 individuals who died each day from opioid overdoses when we started planning this project about a year ago.

In January, we opened our Network Operations Command Center (NOCC). This has been transforming the way we move patients throughout the network and also within our hospitals. The past month has seen major improvements in patient movement, which helps
us provide the very best care. This new system is slated for “go live” at Kettering in early summer. More to come!

Next newsletter, we’ll have a major update on our new hospital in Troy.

Enjoy this issue of our newsletter and keep your co-workers and our entire team in your prayers. You are in mine.

Terry Burns
President
Kettering Medical Center