a mESSAGE FROM THE CEO

Most people think of hospitals when they or a family member are very ill, require surgery, or need emergency care. These are very important services and that's a lot of what we are here for. But for SLV regional Medical Center our past has been a little too focused on those areas. Over the last few years, we have also created an emphasis on prevention, education, promotion of healthy lifestyles and working with our community and patients before health problems occur. After all, if we can help people make better decisions for their health earlier in life, they may not need us later. We're the kind of business that works hard to keep people from ever needing us.

Let me share with you some of what your local hospital is doing to keep our community healthier so they enjoy better living.

First, we started "at home" promoting healthy habits and lifestyles. On September 1, 2006 we became a smoke free campus and facility. Smoking hasn't been allowed in the building for a very long time, but this new initiative includes the entire campus. This creates hardship for some of our patients, visitors and staff. We must lead by example as a health care facility. There is overwhelming evidence of the harm of smoking and the exposure to second hand smoke. For our staff we are providing smoking cessation counseling and a temporary supply of smoking cessation products for those who wish. For patients, physicians are working with them during hospitalization with products to ease the transition.

We have also developed a number of new healthy living programs for our community.

• First the Diabetes Education program, led by Pam Brown. The center provides classes and materials to minimize the impact and help manage the disease. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Silvia Abreu to our team Dr. Abreu is an internal medical physician who has currently completed an additional fellowship in diabetes care and treatment. We also have two registered dietitians who provide expert advice for a variety of diet-related health issues, in addition to assisting our Diabetes Education program.
• Our PRO (Performance-Rehabilitation-Orthopedic) Center is piloting a program for medically based weight loss and supporting people in their efforts to maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle. We have an athletic trainer working with area high schools to prevent sports injuries and time lost due to injuries. ROMP, Occupational Medicine, also offers treatment for work-related injuries as well as supplying programs for employers on how to avoid injuries in the workplace.
• The new Stephanie L. Miner Women's Imaging Center opened in October of 2006. The Center will focus on early detection of cancer for women in a welcoming environment and includes information and valuable resources.
• We remain committed to providing excellent care and treatment for serious illnesses, emergency care and surgery. Our community relies upon us every day for this. In the future we also want to be your partner for healthy lifestyles and disease/injury prevention. While we can't imaging being so successful that our community would never need our emergency services, we can't imagine a better goal! In the meantime, we will continue to improve what we do to support a healthy community.

Russ Johnson, CEO

Last Modified: July 5, 2007