Riverwood Healthcare Center

Riverwood Healthcare Center's mission is to improve health by providing high quality, compassionate and personalized care. Coupling this with our vision of being the region's preferred health system providing exceptional care and our values of integrity, customer service, unity, respect, compassion, excellence and passion, we focused on six strategic goals. These six pillars are people, customer service, growth, Community, stewardship and quality. We strive for these in all that we do for our patients.in 2023, Riverwood added medical providers to its specialty care staff to increase access for residents to obstetrics/gynecology and ent physicians. For primary care, Riverwood continues to use digital technology to enhance patient care, including continuing telemedicine virtual visits for primary care and specialty care, and taps virtual resources for inpatient care as well. During the coronavirus pandemic limitations, Riverwood Healthcare Center began giving patients the opportunity to meet with their health care providers virtually from home. Ongoing, it offers greater convenience for those who found it difficult to get away from their job, find the time to travel to their clinic for an in-person exam or when weather conditions make it unsafe to travel. Dr. tim arnold said, "from a provider perspective, the virtual visit gives us a new way to care for our patients that is much better than a phone visit. We still like to be able to see patients in the clinic, but this is a great option for both providers and patients." Riverwood received several Hospital designations in 2023. Comprehensive advanced life support (cals)- Riverwood was the first Hospital in the state of Minnesota to receive cals designation in 2008 and it continues through today. Cals criteria requires all providers who treat patients in the Hospital be certified in trauma, advanced cardiac life support (acls) as well as pediatrics and neonatal care certified. Cals is one of the premier education programs for rural health care providers. With 100% of nurses and providers trained in cals and securing recommended equipment, Riverwood proves its commitment to the people it serves. Riverwood Healthcare Center was recognized for excellence in workplace safety and health during the 2023 Minnesota safety and health conference. Riverwood received the conference meritorious achievement: incidence rates that are better than the industry average for at least three years, and a score between 50 and 74 on a 100-point safety program evaluation scale. From safe facilities and equipment to following the best safety practices, a focus on workplace safety is embedded in all that we do at Riverwood. The Riverwood Healthcare Center diabetes self-management education program has been awarded continued recognition status from the american diabetes association (ada). Riverwood's program was originally recognized by the ada in 2005. The program is a voluntary process that assures that approved education services have met the national standards for diabetes self-management education services. Programs that achieve recognition status have a staff of knowledgeable health professionals who can provide high quality care and information about diabetes management for participants. This designation recognizes the excellence of care provided to patients with diabetes who receive care from our diabetes education team at Riverwood. With a medical provider's referral, those with diabetes are offered individual or group education sessions to successfully manage this chronic disease. Riverwood Healthcare Center earned the joint commission's gold seal of approval for critical access Hospital accreditation by demonstrating continuous compliance with its performance standards. The latest results from Hospital consumer assessment of health care providers and systems (hcahps) surveys show that Riverwood consistently gets rated five stars, the highest rating of "excellence" from the patients it serves. The five-star ratings issued by the centers for medicare and medicaid services are for patients' experience of their Hospital care. Factors include important topics like how well nurses and doctors communicate, how responsive Hospital staff were to needs, and cleanliness and quietness of the Hospital environment. The five-star rating is based on hcahps survey data from 2021 and 2022. The Minnesota department of health recently recertified Riverwood Healthcare Center in Aitkin as a level iii trauma Hospital. After participating in an intense training process to become part of Minnesota's statewide trauma system, the Aitkin county Hospital earned its initial designation in december 2006 and was the first rural Hospital in Minnesota to achieve the level iii designation. "Riverwood has a strong commitment to caring for trauma patients where rapid medical response is critical to saving lives," says dr. jim harris, Riverwood emergency department medical director and trauma program medical director. "through the statewide trauma system, we participate in continuous performance improvement activities and staff training, ensuring that all our ed nurses and physicians are recertified in advanced lifesaving and trauma care annually. Congratulations to our Riverwood team for this big achievement of continuous trauma Center designation over 17 years." The Minnesota trauma system features four levels of care with varying degrees of resources available at hospitals. Levels i and ii hospitals have the most trauma care resources. These are typically high-volume trauma centers with many surgical subspecialties immediately available at the Hospital. Level iii and level iv hospitals demonstrate a commitment to providing high quality trauma care with respect to the resources they have available. Level iii trauma centers have surgeons readily available to the Hospital but lack other surgery subspecialties. Level iv hospitals do not require surgery services. For a severely injured person, the time between sustaining an injury and receiving definitive care is the most important predictor of survivalcalled the "golden hour." The chance of survival diminishes with time. A strong local trauma Center enhances the chance of survival, regardless of proximity to an urban Hospital offering a higher level of trauma care. "injury is a leading cause of premature death in Minnesota," said Minnesota commissioner of health dr. brooke cunningham. "the goal of the trauma system is to decrease injured patients' time to care by making sure their medical needs are appropriately matched with Hospital resources." On average, trauma claims the lives of 4,300 minnesotans annually. States with trauma systems have seen survival rates increase by 15 to 20 percent. Wide-scale participation in the voluntary trauma system ensures that a statewide, cooperative effort is in place to care for seriously injured patients. Riverwood Healthcare Center was recognized by the Minnesota Hospital association (mha) for one of the outstanding Community programs in Minnesota with its Riverwood connects program. At the recent 2023 mha annual meeting, Riverwood representatives accepted the award for exemplary achievement in Community benefits for addressing social determinants of health with patients. Mha shared these comments on the Community benefits award: "the team at Riverwood recognizes the unique needs of the population they serve. With an older population in a rural area, getting resources out to those who need them was a challenge that Riverwood took on and developed Community partnerships to address." Riverwood connects program is a Community health initiative that provides a central platform for resources addressing social influencers of health, such as food insecurity, housing and transportation. Riverwood adds patients to the platform to ensure they can access the resources they need and partners with Aitkin county care to ensure resources are distributed effectively. In june 2023, Riverwood connects went live with find help and food rx. Find help is a collaborative effort derived from the 2020 needs assessment completed by the Aitkin county coalition, led by Aitkin county care. The assessment identified the need for a Community resource hub with find help selected as the online hub of choice. The online platform "find help" was built in 2010 to offer an easier way to find social services and to connect to them directly and electronically. With the financial and administrative assistance from Aitkin county care, Riverwood implemented find help in its facility and Community wide.