Asante Ashland CEO met with community members Thursday

Ashland.news staff report

Growing the birthing center and maintaining the emergency department at Asante Ashland Community Hospital are among the goals listed in a new strategic plan announced in a news release from Asante, which operates hospitals in Ashland, Medford and Grants Pass, as well as offering related medical services in a number of Rogue Valley locations.

After more than 100 interviews with community stakeholders and months of planning, Asante Ashland’s Chief Executive Officer Brandon Mencini presented the strategic plan to Ashland community members Thursday, Asante said in a release late Thursday that did not include the meeting’s location.

The release said Mencini said Ashland Community Hospital will remain a key resource in the community by retaining its acute care operations and adjusting service lines to meet the current needs of the population and align with other services throughout the health system. 

Key service line focuses and investments will include, according to the release:

• Providing focused inpatient services: Lower acuity cases, meaning patients with conditions that are identified as “not severe” and that “do not require intensive care,” are expected to grow in Ashland. The goal is to treat more shorter-stay cases that don’t require the more complex capabilities available at Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford.

• Invest in outpatient surgical services: Evaluate introducing new surgical specialties, recruit additional surgeons and invest in equipment to deliver high-touch capabilities and expand local access.

• Advance the emergency department: Ashland Community Hospital’s emergency room is the critical front line for life-saving and emergent care for thousands in our community each year. Through maintaining this expertise to treat in a convenient and accessible environment, and when needed, providing seamless transitions to the tertiary capabilities provided at other Asante facilities, more patients can receive this care close to home.

• Optimize imaging services: Invest in technology and operations to provide faster access to outpatient diagnostic services and an outstanding patient experience. 

• Grow volumes in the Family Birth Center: Growth is essential to the future success of the Family Birth Center, which offers a convenient and family-centered environment unique to this hospital. To help achieve this goal, Asante plans to recruit a Board-Certified OB GYN leader and physical updates to the unit.

“Ashland Community Hospital is a treasure in our community, and we look forward to investing in these strategic initiatives to better serve our patients,” said Brandon Mencini, CEO of the hospital, in the release. “The new strategic plan marks an exciting moment in our history and allows us the opportunity to align with the community growth priorities of Ashland.”   

Recently, the hospital debuted its new and improved Entrance 1 — one of the first projects that kicked off the future progress of this facility.

Asante is a locally owned and governed not-for-profit health system with 6,000 employees providing compassionate care to nearly 600,000 people in a nine-county area of southern Oregon and northern California. Asante includes Ashland Community Hospital, Asante Physician Partners, Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, Three Rivers Medical Center in Grants Pass and additional health care locations throughout the region.

The following is a Q:A between Mencini and community members on Thursday, Dec. 5, as reported by Asante:  

Q: As you arrived this summer, a strategic planning process began for Asante Ashland Community Hospital. Can you tell us about the “why” behind the process and also how the process was structured?

A: “When I arrived in July, we began evaluating our strategic plans as a system, including Ashland Community Hospital. As a best practice, when you approach strategic planning, organizations often engage a reputable, third-party partner to help with the analysis, data gathering and community engagement process. In collaboration with our vendor, we facilitated key interviews with more than 100 stakeholders including physicians, nurses, community members and business leaders to understand what is most important to our community and where there are opportunities for our hospital. These interviews sparked a lot of conversation and gave us great insight for our strategic plan.”

Q: After listening to community stakeholders, staff and physicians and gathering copious data, tell us about the strategic focus and plan for Ashland.

A: “What is really important to us is that we preserve the legacy of the hospital. Our overall vision as we go forward is we’re providing focused in-patient and surgical care with accessible emergency and diagnostic services. It will be important that we not only serve our population, but also inclusively serve patients of all ages.”

Q: Can you tell us why the different identities of Ashland Community Hospital and Rogue Regional Medical Center matter and how this benefits the Ashland community in particular?

A: “It sounds basic, but it’s critical to understand each hospital and what we provide our unique communities, what we do well and identify what we are not. Additionally, it’s important we don’t have a redundancy of services. For example, at Rogue Regional, our identity is a tertiary regional referral and level II trauma center serving southern Oregon and northern California. This is where you go for things like major trauma injuries, strokes and heart attacks. It’s great that we have a well-recognized high-level facility like this just 15-20 minutes away. That’s not Ashland, where we provide focused inpatient and surgical care with accessible emergency and diagnostic services for lower-acuity cases. Ashland residents enjoy the best of both worlds: Ashland Community Hospital close to home and easily accessible and the unmatched advanced specialty care at Rogue Regional just 11 miles away.” 

Q: On one hand, there’s not any huge changes, but on the other, a great deal will be changing – talk us through some examples of what investments have already been made and will be made going forward?

A: “These investments are underway, starting with our people. We appointed two long-standing employees to help lead our teams within the facility in Director of Operations and Director of Nursing capacities. Additionally, if you’ve been to the hospital over the last couple of weeks, you probably noticed our newly renovated Entrance 1. As the front door of our hospital, this new space is open and welcoming with ample seating and natural light to enhance our patient and visitor experience. Knowing surgical services are a key priority, we’ve also recently invested in our operating rooms. As shared, we will focus on our recruitment efforts to bring more providers to the Ashland area, including an OB GYN to join our Family Birth Center.”

Q: What is the plan for sharing the plan for Ashland Community Hospital more broadly with the community?

A: “We were deliberate with our communications regarding Ashland Community Hospital. Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been meeting with some of our key leaders and providers to personally share the plan, as well as sharing this strategic direction with our employees. Now, we’re engaging our external communities as we spread the word about the exciting future ahead for Ashland Community Hospital.”  

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