New Orion Clinic now open

Hammond-Henry Hospital Medical Group is pleased to announce they are expanding their clinic base to include Orion with a medical clinic which will open on August 15. Located at 1001 Division St. (Highway 150), the clinic will offer both family medicine and urgent care availability. Hours will be 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday. The clinic has two exam rooms, one procedure room, a laboratory area, and several support rooms. This expansion will make this the seventh (7th) Hammond-Henry Clinic.

Two nurse practitioners will lead the clinic - Mara Clarke, APRN and Heather Lowry, APRN. Mara grew up in Marshalltown, IA. After graduation from Marshalltown Community College, Mara continued her education at the University of Iowa and received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. In 2004, Mara graduated with her master’s to become a nurse practitioner and in 2018 she received her Doctorate of Nurse Practice from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Mara’s calling to be a nurse came from the experience her grandfather had with exceptional care from nurses after a heart attack and several strokes. She saw the impact the nurses had on his life and an opportunity to affect the lives of others in a positive way. Mara currently resides in Orion with her husband, three sons and dog. She also is a faculty member in Family Nurse Practitioner program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She sees every day as an opportunity stating, “…each day is a gift from God and whatever happened yesterday is in the past and it can be changed today in the present.”

Originally from Oklahoma, Heather Lowry, APRN moved to the Quad Cities in 2012, which is where she continues to reside with her husband and newborn child. Heather worked as an emergency room nurse and a Director of Nursing for a cataract surgery center before becoming a nurse practitioner in July 2019. She joined Hammond-Henry in the same year. Her previous roles at Hammond-Henry include seeing established patients in Port Byron and working in urgent care at the Colona Clinic. Heather will continue to see her patients part time in Port Byron and looks forward to meeting and serving new patients in Orion.

Colton Anderson, Director of Hammond-Henry Hospital Medical Group Clinics states, “Opening a clinic in Orion is very exciting. We are eager to provide excellent care close to home for those living in and around Orion. It is a wonderful community, and we are looking forward becoming a part of it.”

HHH also offers family medicine and walk-in care in Geneseo, Cambridge, Kewanee, and Port Byron, along with Urgent Care services in Colona and Annawan.

Below are some photos from the Orion Clinic open house.

Hammond-Henry Hospital achieves 5-Star Patient Experience for 3 years in a row

Hammond-Henry Hospital has been awarded a 5-Star Rating for Patient Experience for the 3^rd consecutive year. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) star rating scores hospitals on a one-to-five-star scale based on the 10 publicly reported measures in the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, which assesses patient experiences collected from October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021. In October CMS will release a new report for January 2021-December 2021. The survey is administered to a random sample of adult patients across all types of medical conditions between 48 hours and six weeks post-discharge. Surveys are not restricted to Medicare beneficiaries. To receive a rating, hospitals must have received at least 100 completed HCAHPS surveys over a given four-quarter period and be eligible for public reporting of the measures. CMS publishes these star ratings on Hospital Compare at medicare.gov/hospitalcompare to help patients when choosing a hospital. In addition, Hammond-Henry Hospitals Long Term Care Living Center (LTC) has been CMS 5-Star for the past ten (10) years.

The survey focuses on the patient experience and is a 360-degree view of the environment a patient encounters while admitted to a hospital. The survey measures communications with doctors and nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, cleanliness and quietness of the hospital, communication about medicines and discharges, care transition, overall rating of the hospital and willingness to recommend the hospital.

Hammond-Henry Hospital was one of 189 hospitals nationally that received five stars, the highest score a hospital can receive.

Hammond-Henry Hospital Chief Nursing Officer, Heather Charlet, RN, comments, “Hammond-Henry Hospital is privileged to provide quality of care for our neighbors, family, friends, and community. This recognition is a direct reflection of the care that dedicated Hammond-Henry staff consistently provide every day.”

“Hammond-Henry Hospital strives to ensure that patient expectations are met and exceeded,” said Mark Kuhn, Chief Executive Officer. “The ability to maintain a 5-star rating for patient experience is something that we take a great deal of pride in. Our physicians and staff do an exceptional job caring for our patients. It is an honor for them to be recognized for their work.”

We celebrated our CMS 5-Star award on August 24 with gift bags filled with fun things and treats. The bags were distributed to our various departments. Below are some pictures.