At the conclusion of one of the most significant years in our hospital’s history,  I am happy to present the current state of Roxborough Memorial Hospital to the people of the community we have served with pride since 1890.

Last year at this time while we waited to be sold by the Tenet Health System, the hospital family never wavered in its dedicated commitment to our patient care mission. In doing so, they also helped us to accomplish many important quality outcome improvements and to earn prestigious professional recognitions that have had a direct impact on that mission.

Between October 2006 and October 2007, we recorded zero ventilator-associated pneumonia cases. Since April 2007 we decreased central line associated infections by more than 50 percent, and our urinary catheter infection rate of 1.4 in the most recent quarter fell well below the national median of 2.4. In addition, our surgical infection rate of 0.4 percent is significantly below the national pooled median of 2.7. We were

proud to be recognized in 2007 by the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association for achieving 85 percent or higher adherence to their Get with the Guidelines ™ program in treating heart attack and stroke patients. And in May we won a prestigious award from the Hospital & Healthcare Association of Pennsylvania for our innovative program titled “Targeting ‘Do Not Use’ Abbreviations’: A Patient Safety Initiative”.

In working to achieve all of these accomplishments, our physicians and our employees at every level have played important roles in helping to place us in our current position as the foundation hospital of Solis Healthcare, our new owner.  

Now, from some striking cosmetic improvements to our new 16-slice CT scanner, we are beginning to see the positive early results of the Solis vision for our hospital going forward.

I am confident that the progress we have made over the past six months will continue in 2008. While we work to attract new physicians in a variety of specialties, we are also in the process of adding new equipment in our laboratory, operating rooms, emergency department and the patient floors. We are developing plans to move the MRI unit inside the hospital where it will enable us to provide fulltime service, and we expect to soon begin adding more space for our Comprehensive Wound Healing Center to better serve the expanding patient population there. We believe that the entire hospital, as well as our patients, will benefit from a new state-of-the-art information technology system that we expect to implement during the first half of the new year. And although it is less visible than some of our other projects, we are also currently installing a new, more energy efficient boiler system.

Continuing to look ahead, we plan to expand such existing programs as our Geropsychiatry Unit and our Sleep Laboratory, and to take advantage of other new opportunities that present themselves as we did in 2007 with the opening of our outpatient physical therapy site at the Roxborough Y on Domino Lane.

A few months ago, we installed a new mural in our main lobby that depicts what our hospital was in its early years, what it is today and what it can become. Soon, we will install another striking mural in our cafeteria that depicts the history of the Roxborough, Manayunk and Wissahickon communities dating back to 1690. It previously hung in the recently relocated Citizens Bank building at Ridge and Lyceum Avenues. We believe that these murals will help to send a strong visual message to everyone about our pride in our location, and our confidence that we will continue to be here for many years to come.

Best wishes to everyone for a happy new year and thank you for your loyalty to Roxborough Memorial Hospital.