Salem Township Hospital’s new Chief Executive Officer James Timpe attended his first meeting of the hospital board Wednesday afternoon.
He shared his impressions of the hospital three and a half weeks after his arrival.
“My impression is that we have a great functioning hospital here,” Timpe said. “Great staff, people have been here a long time. Our doctors are committed to our patients, and I think we have a great asset for the community here. It’s a great start and we’ll just keep improving from there.”
Timpe feels the volume dictates the hospital continue looking at renovation and expansion of the operating and emergency rooms.
“We’ve improved the hospital up to this point to be equal to or better than the top facilities in the United States, which is great for our community, but we do have a few areas that need to come up to that same standard.”
An Indianapolis architectural firm BSA will begin development the plans for the renovation next month. Timpe says they will consider an expansion at the rear of the hospital to allow space for the addition of a third operating room due to growth in volume. Once plans and costs are completed, they will be brought back before the hospital board before a final decision is made to proceed with the project. BSA was responsible for the renovation of A wing into the new rural health center.
Everything is still on schedule for the hospital to convert to a new electronic record system on September 18th. The move will require patients to switch to a new patient portal to manage their health care.
The hospital had another good month. Chief Financial Officer Amy Gray reported the hospital had a $564,000 positive bottom line and was $46,000 over budget. For the first two months of the hospital’s fiscal year, $109,000 in charity care has been provided.
