Health Update: November '09

Tyler Joining Mercy
Tyler Memorial Hospital in Tunkhannock is joining Mercy Health Partners. Effective Jan. 1, 2010, Tyler Memorial Hospital will become Mercy Tyler.

It will join Mercy Scranton and Mercy Special Care as a part of Mercy Health Partners.
The announcement and signing by Mercy Scranton President Kevin Cook and Tyler Memorial Hospital CEO Denise S. Gieski comes after a due-diligence process that started last spring.

Mercy Health Partners will assume the obligations, resources and personnel of Tyler, making Mercy Tyler a member hospital of Cincinnati-based Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP), which was recently recognized as a top-ten health system in quality and efficiency by Thomson Reuters.

Established in a converted hotel in Meshoppen in 1948, Tyler Memorial Hospital was the result of a grassroots community effort to create a hospital in the region.

Tyler has provided a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic services to the region, including laparoscopic and general surgery, internal medicine, an intensive care unit, emergency services, mobile intensive care, physical and occupational therapy, pediatrics, orthopedics, short-stay surgery, kidney dialysis, laboratory, vascular services, an imaging center, cardiac rehabilitation, podiatry, urology, cardiology, rheumatology and a sleep disorder clinic and a home health agency.

The hospital holds a pivotal position within Wyoming County.

The merger is expected to strengthen the facility, ensuring continued high-quality medical care to area residents.

Mercy is part of Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP), a multi-congregational health system and one of the largest non-profit health-care systems in the nation.
Thomson Reuters has named Mercy Hospital a Top 100 hospital in the nation for heart care, four years in a row.

Mercy Health Partners is comprised of Mercy Hospital, an acute-care hospital in Scranton, Mercy Special Care Hospital in Nanticoke and three outpatient centers located in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.

Distress Call Response
Associates of Mercy Hospital donated several hundred pounds of food in response to a distress call from the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne counties, alerting the public to dwindling supplies at area food pantries.

Rehab Seminar
The John Heinz Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine recently hosted the seminar “Legal Issues for Traumatic Brain Injury, Spinal Cord Injury and Other Seriously Ill and Injured: Managed Care Appeals and Health Insurance Issues.” The seminar was presented by Joseph L. Romano.

Fall Risk Screening
Physical therapists from Allied Services recently held a fall risk screening for the sisters at Marywood University. The screening was at the suggestion of the Northeast District Office of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The nuns were tested on the speed at which they could walk a small course and how far they could reach. These two factors, and a questionnaire, determined their risk of falls.

Rehab Success Story
Each year, thousands of rehabilitation providers and health and human services agencies join together to celebrate National Rehabilitation Week. Allied Services health care system first celebrated National Rehabilitation Week in 1976. What began as a small-scale local awareness campaign 33 years ago has steadily grown in scope over the years.

In 1997, the observance took yet another step forward when, for the first time, it was celebrated under the banner of the newly established National Rehabilitation Awareness Foundation, which has extended National Rehabilitation Week from a weeklong event to a year-round rehabilitation awareness campaign.

The foundation sets a theme for the week, develops and distributes promotional materials and provides any assistance needed by participating facilities. This year’s theme is “A Bridge to a Brighter Day.” More than 6,500 rehab facilities and health and human services care providers participated in the event in 2000.

Through the National Rehabilitation Awareness Celebration, the foundation focuses the nation’s attention on capabilities rather than disabilities and increases awareness of the tremendous power and impact of rehabilitation. The not-for-profit foundation is headquartered in Scranton.

One patient is Nancy Hilliard, a speech language pathologist who lives in Scot Run. She has cerebral palsy, which was caused when she was dropped at birth. Her mother discovered it only after she began to crawl on her right shoulder when she was nine months old. As a child, Hilliard was treated at Shriner’s Hospital, where she had the first of many operations designed to give her more function on her right side. She usually travelled to Allentown, thinking that she couldn’t find the care she needed in this area.

Years later, she began to go for physical therapy at Allied Services in Scot Run and later moved her treatment in Scranton, where Allied has more high-tech equipment. In the last year and a half since coming to Scranton, Hilliard has made great progress. What may seem like little things to most people are amazing feats for her. She can now pick up, open and hold a can. She can turn the spigots on a faucet. She can turn doorknobs, which means a lot to her since she once broke her wrist trying to get out of a locked bathroom. She can turn on the ignition of a car. She can hold and control her pruner to prune her garden.