Ephraim McDowell treating patients better for less
Normally, news coverage of health care focuses solely on the high costs of the American health care system. However, Ephraim McDowell Health, and a growing number of other hospitals, doctors, employers and health insurers are finding ways to reduce the cost of delivering medical care while maintaining or improving quality.
Ephraim McDowell Health is doing this by participating in the QUEST program. QUEST is a part of the Premier Health Care Alliance that helps hospitals nationwide make substantial improvements. Through this partnership, members are using health care data and best practices to drive significant improvements in the areas of cost reduction, harm prevention, evidence-based care delivery, mortality, patient experience and readmissions.
As noted in a recent article in the New York Times, QUEST is unlike many other improvement efforts in health care, as it is driven by science and optimized to support rapid results. In fact, most QUEST hospitals achieve measurable improvements within months, not years, widening the gap between themselves and non-participants almost immediately and setting themselves up to be viewed as top performers in a world that increasingly ties reimbursement to performance. The New York Times article stressed the importance and value of these partnerships.
Ephraim McDowell Health has been a member of this alliance for four years. This is just another example of Ephraim McDowell Health’s commitment to providing excellent care for the people it serves.
Premier Inc., an alliance of more than 2,600 hospitals across the country, has been testing ways to save money and improve care. It stresses quick treatment to prevent deaths and costly complications from infections, strokes and cardiac crises. It has reduced unnecessary laboratory and screening tests. And it has reduced labor costs by eliminating inefficient processes, like multiple re-entries of the same patient data for admitting, scheduling, discharge and billing, and by using caseworkers or administrative assistants rather than nurses to call patients to remind them of appointments or checkups.
Premier reported in January that during a three-year period, 157 of its hospitals in 31 states saved almost 25,000 lives and reduced health care spending by nearly $4.5 billion, roughly 12 percent of the total three-year cost of care at those hospitals.
Banks joins Ag Credit Country Mortgage program
Katie Goggin Banks has been named a full-time mortgage loan originator with Central Kentucky Ag Credit. She is a native of Danville and has worked part-time in Ag Credit’s Country Mortgage Division at Richmond while completing her college degree.
Banks is the daughter of John and Susan Goggin of Danville. The family produces registered Angus cattle on its 80-acre Boyle County farm.
Banks’ work in the Ag Credit Country Mortgage program started in March 2011, and she has been an assistant to Diana McDowell, Country Mortgage Loan Originator, since that time. Banks’ promotion and full-time employment in the Country Mortgage Program represents a promotion for her, and an expansion of Ag Credit’s rural home lending program.
She will be headquartered in the Danville office of Central Kentucky Ag Credit and her work will encompass lending in several central Kentucky counties.
In addition to her work in the Country Mortgage program for the past 15 months, Banks brings an excellent background to the Ag Credit team. She earned her ag business degree from Eastern Kentucky University.
She graduated magna cum laude from Eastern Kentucky University, and attended college as a four-year University Regent Scholar.
Banks was also a member of Delta Tau Alpha, an academic honorary society; was a member of EKU’s Ag Ambassadors; and she was president of the Eastern Kentucky University Ag Club for two years.
Banks’ background includes activity with many farm organizations, including past membership in the Central Kentucky (and Kentucky) Junior Angus Associations, and present membership in the American Angus Association. She is also a member of the Danville Presbyterian Church.
Banks is married to Andy Banks, a native of Springboro, Ohio. They will reside in Danville.
CAC hires new marketing director
Mariel Smith has joined the staff of the Community Arts Center as its director of marketing.
Smith is a 2011 graduate of Centre College and is working on a graduate degree in nonprofit management through Morehead State University.
