Cox Monett to recognize employees

Each year, Cox Monett recognizes employees who have served for five years or more; this year’s banquet will be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, April 30th, at the Monett High School. Here are two of the long-term employees who will be honored Friday night:

Nancy Roller, Payroll

Most people living in the Ozarks eagerly anticipate the first day of spring, but not Nancy Roller, Cox Monett Payroll Manager. Nancy loves everything about winter, including the snow and cold weather.

“I love winter because I like coming home to a warm house,” she says. “People think I’m a little crazy, but I don’t think there’s anything prettier than watching the snow fall or waking up in the morning to see the snow glistening in the sun.”

After 25 years in business as a hairdresser, Nancy decided to come to work at the hospital as a switchboard operator, and then later transferred to the accounting department, where she has worked for 13 years.

“I love the people that I work with and the flexibility that my job allows me,” she says. “It truly is a family atmosphere here.”

In her spare time, Nancy enjoys spending time with her family and watching two of her favorite shows on television, “Criminal Minds” and “Dancing with the Stars.” Someday when she retires, she would like to spend more time painting and reading and maybe taking a cruise.

Roger Price, Environmental Services


Who do you call when you don’t know who to call? That would be Roger Price, Cox Monett Environmental Services supervisor. On any given day, Price can be found buffing floors, taking out the trash, cleaning patient rooms or mowing the lawn.

“There’s plenty of work to do and no two days are ever alike,” he says. “Many people have told me we have the shiniest floors around, we take pride in our work and want to do the best job possible.”

Price started his career at the hospital in the housekeeping department cleaning patient rooms. In addition to his regular duties, he also manages 12 full-time and two part-time staff.

“I’m a very simple person, what you see is what you get,” says Price. “I enjoy what I do because of the people that work here.” Roger resides with his wife, Jo, in Pierce City. Jo is from Thailand and they have traveled there eight times to visit her family. They also like to visit national parks and take an occasional trip to Las Vegas. Besides traveling, Price likes to read biographies and buys one book a week so he’ll have them one day when he retires.

“I have a whole bookshelf just waiting for me,” he says.

Pair donates stuffed toys to Pediatrics

When Billie Jean Thompson’s daughter was about to turn three, she broke her arm and wound up in Pediatrics at Cox South. While she was there, the staff of Child Life gave her a teddy bear that Billie Jean says made all the difference.

“She still has that teddy bear,” she says with a laugh. “That was pretty cool.”

Billie Jean is a caregiver for Rena Rideout of West Plains and when Rena mentioned she had some stuffed animals at home that had never been played with, Thompson saw an opportunity.

“She wanted to donate them to somewhere where kids need them and I said, ‘I know the place,’” Billie Jean says.

They were in Springfield for a doctor’s appointment Friday afternoon and they made a stop to drop off a wagon full of toys for kids in Pediatrics.

The Child Life department accepts donations of toys that are new or unused.

Efforts help make every day Earth Day

In celebration of Earth Day, it’s time to take stock of the ways CoxHealth is working to protect the environment. Over the past couple of years, CoxHealth’s Environmental Leadership Council and our volunteer Green Team Champions have made changes that have reduced waste and encouraged recycling and energy conservation throughout the health system.

In conjunction with CoxHealth’s Engineering, Environmental Services and Materials Management departments, we’ve been able to:

• Install an environmentally friendly floor covering on the hospital’s skywalk
• Switch to “greener” paper towels in restrooms throughout the hospital
• Expand the usage of concentrated, environmentally friendly cleaning chemicals that reduce the amount of water used in industrial floor scrubbers
• Recycle cardboard, paper and metal from throughout the system.
• Connect lights in areas that are not occupied 24 hours a day to motion sensors, allowing them to be off when no one’s around.
• Work to phase out CRT monitors for computers and replacing them with energy-saving flat-screen monitors.
• Modify bed-change policies to reduce the total amount of linens washed and the amount of water used.

Most recently, we’ve added aluminum and plastic recycling, which is managed by our Green Team champions – volunteers from throughout the system who are passionate about recycling and are pitching in to help make recycling a reality for their departments and four our guests. There are currently more than 100 champions volunteering to help with recycling in their departments and sharing ideas on Cox’s intranet.

The effort is ongoing, but small changes Cox has made over the last couple of years are helping us make a big difference in our environmental impact. A roundup of past overage of our efforts can be found here: http://www.coxhealth.com/body.cfm?id=3267

Two more Prestigious Partners honorees

CoxHealth’s Employee Recognition Banquet is set for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 22 at University Plaza – here are two more profiles of employees who'll be honored on Thursday night:


Danielle Braden-Moll, Adult Medicine and Endocrinology Specialists

Danielle Braden-Moll is a certified diabetes educator at CoxHealth. She’s also a first-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

“It’s a form of self-defense and fighting,” says Braden-Moll. “We’re taught to avoid problematic situations but we’re also taught how to protect ourselves and to use focus and concentration so we can respond appropriately in different situations.”

One of those situations occurred while Braden-Moll was at a black belt training class at Mid-America Tae Kwon Do in Republic. One of the instructors was 46-year old Dave Gordon from Lamar.

“We were working out pretty hard,” says Gordon. “I started feeling numbness in my fingers. I sat down for about 10-15 minutes and it went away. I got back up and started working out and then I started feeling numbness in the left side of my body.”

Braden-Moll and others in the class encouraged Gordon to sit down again. His condition continued to worsen.

“We finally convinced him to let us take him to get medical help. He got up and took two steps and started to collapse,” says Jay Gillispie, owner of MTA-Republic, who called out to the group for anyone who had a current certification in CPR.

Braden-Moll had just been recertified eight weeks earlier in a Basic Life Support class at Cox. She says Gordon didn’t have a pulse and about 30 seconds later he stopped breathing.

“He had bitten his tongue when he fell so he had blood in his mouth when I initiated CPR,” she says. “I had no protective devices, but you make a choice and the choice was to save this man’s life.”

Gordon had experienced sudden death, a total blockage in the left chamber of his heart which supplies blood to the rest of his body, a condition known as the widow maker because the vast majority of people do not survive.

Braden-Moll continued to do CPR until Cox paramedics arrived. Gordon was shocked with a defibrillator but remained unresponsive. He was finally revived after leaving the center. He received a stent and has made a full recovery.

“Five days after this happened, my granddaughter was born,” says Gordon.

“I never would have gotten to see her if it weren’t for Danielle and all of the others who saved my life that day.”

“To be honest, I always found it annoying to go back and have to be recertified in CPR,” says Braden-Moll. “But because of that simple training, that simple education, this man is alive today.”


Amanda Eddington, Child Life

Amanda Eddington is a child life specialist at Cox South. Her job is to help children cope with the hospitalization experience, but at times she’s called on to help families cope with the loss of a child.

Eddington is being honored as a Prestigious Partner for her actions in one of those circumstances.

“When I came in on that Monday, I knew about the patient who came to us on Saturday,” says Eddington. “On Sunday the family had determined to take this patient off of life support.”
Child life specialists in Pediatrics create memory boxes for families when a death occurs. The box contains items that represent the child including a lock of hair, handprints and foot and hand molds. It also contains a journal for the family.

“It helps to start the grieving process,” says Sue Midcap, Pediatrics assistant nurse manager. “It gives the family something to take home because they aren’t able to take their baby home.”
Child Life could not create a memory box on this occasion until after an autopsy was performed Monday. Amanda arranged to meet the medical examiner in the morgue afterward to collect the items for the box.

“I’ve only been in the morgue one other time,” says Eddington. “It’s not in my normal job description to be there but I knew that was something that needed to be done for that family.”
Eddington learned the family was staying at a hotel in Springfield. She went to the hotel that evening and delivered the memory box to the family.

“When I heard what Amanda had done I was extremely touched but I wasn’t surprised,” says Midcap. “A lot of people might have said, ‘Oh well, we didn’t get that done.’ But Amanda is really special and she took it upon herself to make sure that this got done.”

“I’m honored to get this award but this is just my job,” says Eddington. “Being a child life specialist is my job and helping families cope is my job. It’s not that I think I went above and beyond the call of duty, I just did what I had to do.”

Parents can learn real-world parenting strategies

CoxHealth presents a new series of parenting classes, “Parenting Strategies for the Real World.” Classes are held on Thursdays, 6:30-7:30 p.m., in Classroom C300 at Cox North, 1423 N. Jefferson Ave.

The classes, presented by parent educator Tony Massey, will cover tactics for parenting elementary-, middle- and high school-aged children. Techniques to manage problematic behaviors including power struggles, bullying, drug use, fighting and more will be discussed.

There is no fee or registration required for this class. For more information, call 269-3275.

Banquet to honor Prestigious Partners

Each year, CoxHealth’s Employee Recognition Banquet honors employees who have served with Cox for five years or more. This year’s event will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, at University Plaza Convention Center in downtown Springfield.

This year’s event will also honor those employees who are receiving CoxHealth's Prestigious Partners award for outstanding service. Below are two profiles of employees who'll be honored on Thursday night - watch for two more profiles tomorrow:


Stacie Mountain, Pre-Hospital

Stacie Mountain’s name might imply an imposing figure, but the Cox EMT is actually a petite 5-foot-3-inches tall.

Despite her size, Mountain’s partner, paramedic Jason Blum, says she never backs down on the job, even when dealing with an aggressive patient.

“She has a very pleasant, calm demeanor that sometimes helps to calm down patients who become threatening,” says Blum. “But Stacie can also be tough when she needs to be.”

That toughness may have helped during a tense situation one night last year while Blum and Mountain were on duty in north Springfield. The team was preparing to leave the scene of an earlier call.

“I walked out to the ambulance and heard a woman screaming, ‘Help me, help me,’ over and over,” says Mountain. “A fireman and I walked toward the noise to find out what was going on.”

The screaming was coming from two houses away. As they got closer, they saw a man and a woman struggling.

“He was pulling her by the hair toward a car,” remembers Mountain. “The driver’s side door was open and he was apparently trying to drag her to the car.”

Mountain and the fireman approached the two, startling the man, who let go of the woman and came toward them.

“From what I understand from witnesses, he apparently puffed up his chest and got in their faces like he wanted to fight,” says Blum.

“I don’t think he realized who we were at first, but after he saw our uniforms, he took off running,” says Mountain. “The police apparently caught him a week later.”

After the suspect ran away, the woman ran toward the ambulance and collapsed on the ground.

“I ran over to her to make sure she was okay,” says Mountain. “She told me the man was trying to stab her. She apparently jumped out of the car when she saw the ambulance and fire truck and tried to run for safety. Her quick thinking saved her.”

Mountain’s actions earned her a Prestigious Partners award.

“We’re taught to be aware of your surroundings and to be prepared for something that may escalate, because you just never know,” says Mountain. “I’m glad that we happened to be at the right place at the right time.”


Peggy Cave, Food and Nutrition Services

Peggy Cave always has her yearly mammogram. Loritha Crews, Peggy’s friend and co-worker in Food Services for the past 27 years, had never had one.

“Every year Peggy would talk to me about getting a mammogram. Actually, she really hounded me,” Crews says with a laugh. “I didn’t think I needed one because I don’t have a family history of breast cancer.”

Last year, Loritha’s primary care doctor advised her that she was past the age of beginning yearly mammograms. Loritha told Peggy about her doctor’s recommendation and says Peggy started on her mammogram pitch again.

“Women have to have their mammograms because you just never know,” says Cave, explaining her persistence.

But this year, Peggy changed her tactics.

“We were coming off the elevator on the third floor of Hulston after working up in the board room for a lunch,” remembers Cave. “The elevator opens right outside of the doors to the Breast Care Clinic. I told Loritha I was going to make my appointment for my mammogram and that she was coming with me. So I dragged her in there!”

Peggy made her appointment 15 minutes after Loritha’s so she could be there to support her friend.

“It was my very first mammogram,” says Crews. “I was really apprehensive. I was scared. But Peggy was there for me.”

And Peggy was there for her friend after the mammogram and subsequent screening found a small lump in Loritha’s left breast.

“It really wasn’t large enough for me to feel on my own, so the mammogram was the only way they would have caught it,” says Crews.

Crews says her surgeon told Peggy her persistence saved Loritha’s life.

“If it weren’t for Peggy’s encouragement, I would not have gotten the mammogram,” says Crews. “I probably still wouldn’t have gotten one to this day. I never would have thought having one simple little test could actually save my life.”

Cave’s support for her fellow co-worker earned her a Prestigious Partners award. Cave says she is honored for the recognition but is especially grateful that Loritha is cancer free.

“I just thank the Lord for that,” says Cave. “I just wanted to be there for her because she’s my friend, you know? You do what you can for your friends.”

Public invited to open house and dedication of new orthopedic center

After nearly 18 months of construction, the new 65,000 square-foot Meyer Orthopedic Center is almost complete. Join CoxHealth for a ribbon cutting, refreshments and tours to dedicate this new facility on Saturday, April 17, from 1 -3 p.m., at the corner of National Avenue and Walnut Lawn.

As the population continues to age, the need for orthopedic and joint care is expected to continue to rise. To serve these patients, The Meyer Orthopedic Center (MOC) will provide a single location where they can visit their doctors, undergo surgery, receive inpatient rehabilitation and physical therapy, and have access to a medical fitness center – all under one roof.

Research shows that consolidating services in this way benefits patients. “More and more studies show that when you focus on one type of service, the result is enhanced patient and physician satisfaction, increased efficiency and overall better services,” says Ron Prenger, administrator at Cox Walnut Lawn, where the MOC is located.

This facility includes six new cutting-edge operating rooms; 35 private patient rooms with bedside charting capabilities, flat-screen TVs and couches for patients and their families; hotel-style room service for patients; and each patient will receive a personalized daily newsletter detailing their treatment schedule broken down by the hour for each day of their stay. Patients who are scheduled to undergo a joint replacement at the MOC will also attend Joint Adventures, a new pre-surgery “boot camp” that includes weekly educational classes, an exercise program designed to help patients have a faster recovery and more. Orthopedic trauma cases will continue to be cared for at Cox South.

The Meyer Orthopedic Center was funded by a $1.5 million donation from Ken and the late Jane Meyer, and a bond issuance in the fall of 2008. The Meyer Foundation’s contribution follows a major gift in 2002 that established the Meyer Center for Wellness and Rehabilitation, which is connected to the new MOC.

BabySense class focuses on adoptive parents

Adopting a baby is exciting, but it also brings plenty of new duties and responsibilities. And as the saying goes, new babies don’t come with a manual. As part of an ongoing commitment to families, CoxHealth now offers “BabySense for Adoptive Parents” to help parents prepare for the changes a new baby brings.

The class will be held Wednesday, April 28, 6:30-9:30 p.m., in Suite 130 of the Turner Center, 1000 E. Primrose.

Hosted by the CoxHealth Women’s Center, the class is led by an experienced educator and is geared toward adoptive moms and dads.

The class teaches adoptive parents how to meet the everyday needs of their child. The course covers the basics of baby care and safety, including baby-proofing your home and car seat safety. Parents are also coached on handling crying and offering comfort to their infants, selecting childcare and more.

BabySense is open to the public, but registration is required. There is a $20 fee. For more information or to register, call 269-LADY.

Handmade cards brighten patients’ days

One never knows when the opportunity to make a difference will present itself. For 18-year old Megan Stahl of Nixa, the idea came during a trip to the hospital. She was visiting a patient who mentioned how much he enjoyed receiving get-well cards.

“He said he liked getting cards better than getting flowers because the cards lasted longer,” says Stahl.

Stahl realized supplying cards to patients would not only brighten their hospital stay, but could help her complete a project to achieve her Girl Scouts “Gold Award.”

Stahl got to work and one year later, she delivered 1,200 get-well cards, many of them hand-made, to Springfield hospitals. Cox South received 600 of the cards.

“Some patients who are in the hospital don’t have any visitors or they don’t have family close enough to visit,” Stahl says. “I hope the cards will lift their spirits.”

Stahl worked all year on the project. She collected get-well cards and asked children in the community to make others. Stahl had a booth at the Discovery Center and at various community events, asking people to sign the cards and to create their own for people in the hospital.

“She was an absolute delight and was so excited to bring us the cards,” says Barth Fraker of Volunteer Services. “This is a huge gift of time and caring for our hospital and our patients.”

Guest Services director Debbie Stange says her team of Guest Services representatives will deliver the cards to patients as they visit patient rooms.

“This will definitely put a smile on our patients’ faces,” says Stange. “We appreciate Megan’s hard work and her kindness.”

Haiti relief effort an ongoing mission for health care volunteers

When a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12, people around the world reached out and offered help, sending food, money and medical supplies. Many physicians and nurses traveled to the poor Caribbean nation to provide medical care to the sick and injured. Joy Raybourn, a Regional Services nurse practitioner who works at The Clinic at Walmart, was among them.

Raybourn returned Feb. 16 from a two-week medical trip to Haiti with Project Helping Hands, a group that sends medical teams to underserved areas around the world. It was Raybourn’s second trip with the group – she traveled to Bolivia in 2002.

“We traveled to the Port-Au-Prince area with medical supplies and set up mobile clinics to treat people of all ages,” says Raybourn. The group treated people for malnutrition, dehydration, skin conditions and infections, among other things.

“We saw some wounds from the earthquake that had not yet been treated; I saw the first case of typhoid fever that I’ve ever seen in my life, just a little bit of everything.”

The group of 20, including a pharmacist from Springfield and medical professionals from across the country, travelled by air to Santiago, Dominican Republic, and then drove for 12 hours to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti – an indirect route, but the only one roads allow for.

As the group neared Port-Au-Prince and the epicenter of the earthquake, the degree of damage became more severe. Raybourn says while there are some buildings still standing, nearly all were damaged.

“There is rubble everywhere, and the air is very dusty from the clean-up work that’s going on – that keeps the dust stirred,” she says.

But in spite of the tremendous devastation and the difficult living conditions faced by so many people in the Port-Au-Prince area, Raybourn says the people her group served were gracious and grateful, yet she worries about what the future holds for them.

Spring in Haiti is the rainy season, followed by a hurricane season that lasts until October. “I have a lot of concern for these people and how they will survive that,” says Raybourn. “So many people are sleeping in the streets with nothing – no shelter at all.” Raybourn says the tent cities that have sprung up all around the capital offer very little protection. “It’s just plastic or sheets stretched up on sticks.”

The lack of proper sanitation in these camps, paired with the inevitable standing water the rains will leave behind, makes Raybourn, and medical and relief experts around the world, very concerned. All expect infectious disease to become rampant as runoff from ill-managed human waste and trash interacts with rainwater and leaves behind a breeding ground for diseases such as typhoid fever, malaria and more.

In the long-term, Raybourn believes recovery will take many years. Not just because of the overwhelming damage to buildings and infrastructure, but because of the overwhelming loss of life.

“Everybody there has lost somebody, whether it was a family member, a friend, a co-worker or an acquaintance. News reports say more than 200,000 people died. Haitians themselves say that’s maybe half. They think there are a lot more,” she says.

And so many of those who died were Haiti’s future. Project Helping Hands hired university students to translate for the group.

“Those universities are now gone. Jobs are gone,” says Raybourn. “We would be going down the street and they would say, ‘This was a school. Four hundred people died there. Three hundred children died at this school. This was our nursing school – all our nurses are gone.’ It was just unbelievable.”

Raybourn says if she could return to help more, she would. Project Helping Hands had plans to send in additional teams in April, and more trips could follow.

“I always feel like I get what I give when I go on these trips,” says Raybourn. “And I feel so blessed to live in America. We have so much here to be grateful for.”

A new frontier in joint care opens in May

For patients needing a variety of orthopedic services, including total joint replacement, the new Meyer Orthopedic Center at Cox Walnut Lawn will offer a single stop for care. When it opens at the beginning of May, the facility will be home to the latest in technology combined with a comprehensive approach to orthopedic care that is aimed at getting patients healthier and back home more quickly.

The Meyer Orthopedic Center will provide a single location where patients can visit their doctors, undergo surgery – and post-acute care such as inpatient rehabilitation and skilled nursing – and follow up with physical therapy. After they recover, they’ll also have easy access to a medical fitness facility in the adjoining Meyer Center for Wellness and Rehabilitation.
The new facility will serve as an anchor for many of the services offered on the Walnut Lawn campus and leaders say the focus on orthopedics will benefit both patients and the system as a whole.

“More and more studies show that when you focus on one type of service, the result is enhanced patient and physician satisfaction, increased efficiency and overall better services,” says Ron Prenger, administrator at Cox Walnut Lawn.

The new center will provide that care with six cutting-edge operating rooms that feature digital imaging, ceiling-mounted equipment booms and video capabilities. A new patient wing includes 35 private patient rooms, each with bedside charting capabilities and features such as flat-screen televisions and couches for patients and their families.

In addition to the new facility, leaders say the biggest improvements will come from an in-depth approach that will guide patients through the entire process.

“This is a total comprehensive program where we’re working on a lot of up front education,” says Fred Lerche, director of the musculoskeletal service line at Cox. “Our goal is to make sure that patients are involved in their care and our ultimate goal is to keep improving their outcomes.”

A continuum of care

As the population continues to age and more members of the active 78-million-strong Baby Boom generation retire, the need for orthopedic and joint care is continuing to rise. Recent statistics presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery show that experts predict a 673 percent rise in knee replacements by 2030. The nationwide total predicted then is 3.5 million.

Right now, orthopedic surgeons at Cox perform roughly 1,000 joint replacements annually, with hips and knees being the most common, followed by less common replacements such as shoulders and ankles.

The surgery and rehabilitation process creates a major lifestyle change for patients and the musculoskeletal program at Cox is working to help patients deal with those changes by providing enhanced support in the time before and after surgery.

Patients who are scheduling hip or knee replacements will be enrolled in a new program known as Joint Adventures, a sort of pre-surgery educational boot camp. The idea is to prepare patients for the surgery and to help them identify any potential pitfalls early.

“In the past, we’ve done great joint replacements, but we haven’t had a formal joint education class for patients,” Lerche says. “Working with patients early gives us a chance to evaluate a patient’s situation prior to surgery and it’s easier to problem solve before than after.”

Patients will receive education manuals from their physicians and two weeks prior to their procedure, they are invited to weekly educational classes. Those classes will involve going over the manuals and receiving occupational therapy assessments, followed by a question and answer session.

They will also begin an exercise program with stretching and exercises that will help put patients on the road to a faster recovery process. Lerche says the classes are a good chance to help patients plan for how they’ll handle their home life after the surgery.

“If they have a caregiver at home, we’re asking that person to come to class as well,” he says.

The surgery itself usually involves a three-day length of stay. During that time, patients will receive a daily newsletter that details their treatment schedule, including therapy requirements broken down by the hour.

“They’ll know what’s happening at what time each day during their stay. They’ll know when they have meetings with their therapist and when they have group therapy,” Lerche says. “This really gets the patient into their care. They know what to expect and what’s expected of them.”
Getting patients up and moving after surgery is key to a speedy recovery and to the best outcomes. Keeping them engaged and informed lets the patient lead the way in their own care.

“My hope is that on day two if the therapist hasn’t come in, they’ll be asking, ‘Where’s my therapist?’” Prenger says. “When we’re at the stage where the patient is pushing us, we’ve succeeded in an educational process that involves the patient in their care.”

Patients will be able to attend group therapy in the new facility where classes of 6-10 patients will work together on rehab and exercise. Even after discharge, organizers will be tracking outcomes and seeing how patients are doing months down the road.

Lerche and Prenger say the comprehensive program approach isn’t common at most hospitals, but the investment will pay off in the best outcomes.

“It takes extra time and dedication,” Lerche says, “It really is a team approach, everyone from therapists and nurses to the physicians and support staff is on board for the common cause.”

A wise use of resources

In addition to providing seamless care for patients, the opening of the Meyer Orthopedic Center will also produce new efficiencies for the system as a whole. The new facility will handle most orthopedic surgeries, with the exception of trauma cases and fractured hips, which will remain at Cox South.

Prenger says that in choosing to create an orthopedic hospital, leaders looked at what service lines could be pulled out to stand alone while minimizing any duplication of the services at Cox South. With the other bone and joint efforts going on at the Walnut Lawn campus, orthopedics was an obvious choice.

“We need to be good stewards of the resources we have. By moving some orthopedic beds out of Cox South and bringing them here, that allows South more flexibility in handling their patient volume,” Prenger says.

The additional space also allows for features such as private rooms that wouldn’t be available in a facility that handles a variety of cases. By creating an othopedics-focused area, leaders hope to make an environment that is positive for everyone, from patients and families to staff and surgeons.

“We’re unique in that we have a small operation that we can mold to focus on muscloskeletal on the entire campus,” Prenger says. “That allows us to be focused and expand on our services and the amenities we offer to patients.

“We haven’t seen any other programs as inclusive as ours. We haven’t come across anyone yet who has all of these services in one building with a medical fitness facility under the same roof.”


Center adds hotel-style room service

In addition to a comprehensive orthopedic program, the Meyer Orthopedic Center will also bring a new level of service that will cater to patients and their families.

Among the concierge-style features: room service.

Room service has long been tied to increased patient satisfaction and leaders in Food and Nutrition Services say the Meyer Orthopedic Center is a great opportunity to try out the concept.

From 6:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. patients will be able to phone in orders from their rooms, making their selections from a hotel-style menu. Orders, called in to 19-FOOD, go directly to the kitchen, where meals are made and delivered to the room within 45 minutes.
Menus offer a wide variety of options for patients, with a full array of breakfast selections; soups, salads and sandwiches for lunch; and a variety of dinner entrees.

“We have more options than a typical facility because of the length of stay,” says Jesse Baedke, registered dietitian and coordinator of Food Services at Walnut Lawn.

In the patient wing, the meals are delivered by a host or hostess who is stationed on the unit and works directly with patients.

“This allows us to really focus on the patient, deliver the meal to them and set up the tray and get the patient anything they need.”

Take time to learn CPR, get AED training

CPR is a life-saving skill everyone should have. Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are now available in a variety of public places, including office buildings, airports and malls. If an emergency occurs, would you know how to save a life with one of these methods?

At the next Heartsaver AED class, participants can earn certification in adult, child and infant CPR, and receive AED training. This American Heart Association course is being offered twice in April. Participants can choose from:

• 6-10 p.m., Thursday, April 15
• 8 a.m. – Noon, Saturday, April 24.

Classes are held in the Orientation Classroom at Cox South, 3801 S. National, and are available for a fee of $35 per person. Registration is required. For more information, call 269-4117.