Columbus Regional Healthcare System and Network are taking all the precautions to ensure you receive COVID-safe care.

Commitment to Community

Now, let’s talk briefly about the community and a couple of things I wanted to share with you. Last year, your community hospital provided $6.8 million in charity care and $14.1 million in uncompensated care. I share that with because as we think about the hospital being successful and profitable, and when I mention our operating margin, it’s after we give back to the community. We consider that our mission. We take care of all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. We do it proudly. We are also dedicated to growing and expanding programs that keep folks out of the hospital. I will tell you that we have a very, very dedicated staff.

Some of the things that we’ve invested in outside some of the other strategic initiatives that I mentioned, and specifically around wellness and prevention opportunities, we have just brought on or hired an excellent nurse practitioner who is also credentialed in inpatient diabetes or in diabetes management. She works for us full-time, and she works with us in just managing the inpatient diabetic patients and really being a resource for them as we discharge them from the hospital. We are focused on health education, and we brought along some of our publications, called Health Matters. It’s a new publication that we launched in January. This is going to be a quarterly publication that were going to be sending out to the community.

Last summer, we had weekly wellness walks, and I need to reinvigorate that with my staff, but it was a lot of fun to take that mile walk and to be able to have that kind of walk and talk. If you go to our cafeteria today, you’re going to see something different. You’re going to see a screen, which for anything that you order in our dining room, it’s going to show you all the nutritional information about what you are ordering, because not only are we taking care of patients but we are taking care of each other. We think it’s really important that we are thinking through that.

Our hospital staff is also very active in the community. We are involved in the Columbus County Relay for Life, the Lower Cape Fear Hospice, Boy Scouts of America, the Columbus County Farmer’s Market. In fact, last year we became a satellite site for them, and we had the farmers market on our campus every Thursday afternoon. About a week ago, I attended their annual meeting, and we received their Community Partner of the Year award. We are also involved with Women of Hope, and every year we give four Health Occupation Students of America scholarships to students who are in this community.

One of the first things that I learned when I arrived at Columbus Regional was that our county was 100 out of 100 with respect to how healthy we really are. I’ve said so many times I don’t think that’s a descriptor of who we are. The reality is health disparities are directly linked to socioeconomic issues, which is why it’s so important that we all partner on economic growth as well, that we bring business to the community, that we bring new folks to the community. There’s been a lot of conversation around health and wellness, too, and around a wellness center. I’ve been involved in some of those conversations. I know there are some initiatives ongoing at Lake Waccamaw. We continue to look at what our potential opportunities might be here in Whiteville.

I don’t have the answers to that to give to you tonight. I don’t believe it’s something that the hospital can solely run on its own. It’s definitely something that the hospital wants to be a part of in terms of the conversation. We want to be able to bring resources and programs and services that make a wellness center make sense. I truly think that it’s something that this community can embrace. Changing health outcomes really does take a village, which is why it’s so important that you’re here in this room and that other folks are in a room like this in other parts of the county.

I will and want to continue to reach out to other community leaders to understand our opportunities and support all efforts to make Columbus County healthier. I want to really thank you tonight for coming out here and for listening around some of the things that we’re doing at the hospital. It’s been a great year. We have a great team of people, a great staff and we’ve recruited some new staff members. It’s been delightful to watch people grow and expand in their roles. I’m just so proud to be a part of the hospital. I’m proud of the things that we’re doing, and I’m delighted to be a resident here in Whiteville, North Carolina.

Summary

In 2015, Columbus Regional provided $6.8 million in charity care and $14.1 million in uncompensated care. CRHS considers giving back to the community a pillar of our mission and is proud to say that we will take care of all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.

Additionally, CRHS has taken part of several health initiatives and practices, in the hopes of increasing wellness throughout the community:

In the recent past, Columbus County ranked 100 out of 100 in respect to the community's health. CRHS has plans to participate in the development of a community wellness center, which may be built in the Lake Waccamaw area, though plans are still tentative for the time being.

Sign up now to receive health information email updates.
Newsletter Sign-up
Loading
Language Assistance Services
Copyright © 2024 Columbus Regional Healthcare System. All rights reserved.