Written by the Greensburg Daily News — In March, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics invited the country to “Enjoy the Taste of Easting Right,” through the academy’s annual observance of National Nutrition Month.
Decatur County Memorial Hospital (DCMH) dietician Holly Pray and Marketing & Communications manager Lynzee McDowell were all too happy to accept that invitation and extend it to both hospital employees and to the community at large.
In a recent interview, McDowell told the Daily News, “DCMH offers several programs throughout the year that focus on all types of wellness: physical, financial, environmental and more. As we (DCMH) celebrate National Nutrition Month, we see March as an opportunity to highlight the many nutrition-related programs and services we offer our community.”
Among the initiatives Pray and McDowell worked and promoted in March is DCMH’s just-concluded “LiveWELL” program. LiveWELL, Pray explained was created in 2012 as a way to promote a healthy lifestyle at DCMH and in Decatur County at large.
DCMH Family Practice physician Jennifer Fletcher, MD, has participated in LiveWell and achieved impressive results.
The 2014 edition, Pray explained, started in January and ran continuously through March 31.
LiveWELL focuses on four elements of Living Well, including nutrition, fitness, physiological well-being and technology.

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Decatur County Memorial Hospital (DCMH) has responded proactively to the transitions in healthcare by expanding its Board of Trustees to meet the changing needs.   Thursday evening marked the first official meeting for the newly expanded DCMH Board. 

In the fall of 2013, long-time board members, Toni Collins and Tim Nobbe announced their retirement from the Hospital Board and they served in their final meetings last month. Over a combined 30+ years of service Collins and Nobbe helped guide significant changes, including multiple building projects, service enhancements, national and state recognitions and many more positive initiatives for the Hospital.  Many on the DCMH team have expressed appreciation for their decades of leadership and involvement. 

“The expectations for a Hospital Board of Trustees and their governance have grown exponentially over the years,” commented DCMH President and CEO, Linda Simmons.  “Expanding regulations, the changing environment and additional committees have increased demands on the time of our Board.  As a result, they recognized the need to involve individuals from the community with diverse backgrounds and resources who could help with these additional responsibilities.”

 The DCMH Board approached the Decatur County Commissioners regarding the expanded roles and made the recommendation to increase the size of the governing body from seven to nine total members as allowed by Indiana statute.

Written by Greensburg Daily News — The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) has declared March 2 to 8, “Patient Safety Awareness Week.”

According to NPSF’s website, the event is an “annual education and awareness campaign for healthcare safety,” designed to create awareness in the communities served by hospitals both within the United States and around the world.

At local hospital Decatur County Memorial (DCMH), vice president of patient care Diane McKinney told the Daily News the hospital isn’t holding special events or doing anything out of the ordinary to observe patient safety awareness. In McKinney’s view, no one week of any given year at DCMH can be singled out as being more important for patient safety than any other.

“Every week is patient safety week,” she said.

According to McKinney, DCMH has “all kinds of initiatives and processes in place to insure that [patient] care is safe.”

The hospital, she explained, works through a partnership with the Indiana Hospital Association (IHA), which supplies DCMH with a Federal grant to focus on 10 key areas of patient safety. Those areas include the prevention of hospital-developed infections, DVT (deep vein thrombosis – a specific, serious type of blood clot) prevention, adverse-drug-event prevention, patient-fall prevention and pressure-ulcer prevention (which are caused when a patient lays or sits in one position too long). The 10 IHA key focus areas also include an obstetrics-related (the OB of OB/GYN) emphasis on preventing early-elective deliveries in women less than 39 weeks pregnant.