Open Heart Surgery Cabarrus Memorial Hospital The Case Open Heart Surgery Cabarrus Memorial Hospital

The Case for Open Heart Surgery at Cabarrus Memorial Hospital

Cabarrus Memorial Hospital is based in North Carolina. This is a hospital that serves people from different areas of Cabarrus County. When the hospital was formed, Mr. Cannon who was a wealthy man and owned the biggest millers company called Cannon Mills decided to fully support it. This was because he wanted to offer his workers the best medical facility in the area. He was known of his compassion, and this made him sponsor the hospital whole heartedly. With the help of other community leaders, the hospital was opened in 1937. It had a tremendous growth and later the board of governors led by the chairman George Batte decided to introduce an open heart surgery program (Hayman, 2009).

The board of governor held a meeting, and they had a lot on the table. Many questions had to be laid down in order to assess the way forward. The Chairman introduced the areas to be covered starting with reasons why the hospital needed the open heart surgery. He added the hospitals service area which he questioned where it was adequate, and whether it held enough points for them to get the government's license. Batte wondered what role the Duke University would play in order to assist in the development of this program. It was not easy to get the certificate of need from the government of Carolina, and so it was necessary for the board of governors to put up a strategic plan that was convincing to the government. He also feared that thing hospitals would put up a resistance to the department that issues the certificate of need.

1.Discuss ways the program does or does not comply with the hospital's mission.

The reason for this program was because the heart patients who needed surgery in Cabarrus had to travel long distances on referral for the operations. They would travel for two hours through badly infrastructure roads to get to Charlotte where they would have their open heart surgeries. Other than the confusing roads, Charlotte was known to be highly populated, and this confused the drivers from the remote areas. The hospital seemed near, but it was far due to the many delays. This was noted when Cabarrus Memorial Hospital started radiotherapy, and the number of patients increased tremendously. With all these problems facing Cabarrus people, there was a need for the hospital to introduce the open heart surgery program to safe its residents (Hayman, 2009).

2. Analyze whether or not CMH has sufficient infrastructure and financial resources / leverage necessary to add the program.

Cabarrus Memorial hospital is located at crossroads, and from the map, we see there is a road connecting it to Duke University Memorial Hospital, and it is also connected to Kannapolis and concord. The infrastructure is capable, and will enable patients from these towns too access the hospital without problems. These roads are also interconnecting the six towns around, and this shows that the infrastructure allows the expansion of the hospital. With the help of investors like Mr. Miller, the finances would not be a problem. With a proper proposal from the board of governors, the government will also be willing to fund the project. All the advantages that Cabarrus Hospital has over the others will allow any investor to put their money there. The desperate situation with patients in the region will make them contribute to the funding of the project (Vivien, 2001).

This open heart surgery in Cabarrus memorial hospital was likely to meet opposition from the nearby hospitals. These nearby hospitals would feel threatened because the patients they treated from Cabarrus would now divert their payments. If the Cabarrus Memorial hospital proved to be better than the others, they will get the most experienced doctors, and this will challenge the other hospitals. This means that even the investors who were assisting the other hospitals might be attracted to Cabarrus Hospital hence divert their funds there. These challenges could get the other hospitals trying to stop the licensing from the department issuing the certificate of needs. However, Cabarrus stands a better chance of licensing due to the advantages that it has over the other hospitals (Vivien, 2001).

3. Describe the competitive situation among other area hospitals that could impact the decision.

Cabarrus Memorial hospital is a well equipped hospital. It has all the equipment needed for cardio surgeries, and this gives competition to the other existing hospitals. It is well staffed with care units...

Despite the hospital not undertaking the open heart surgeries, it had been operating diagnostic and therapeutic surgeries. This gives it an added advantage over the other hospitals. It has other facilities which include cardiac imaging capabilities, and also the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Another advantage this hospital has over the others is its locality. From the map, we can see that it is located in a central place that is connected to other regions, unlike Rowan, Lowrance and others that are far from the population. With its central location, its patients would not have to travel long, stressful distances for follow up (Tsung, 2006).
The hospital has had ample affiliate programs in conjunction with Duke University. These programs have helped the hospital since despite programs being out-door; they have indoor programs that train even the patients on how to handle their conditions positively. Heart diseases come along with some depression, and if the patient does not undergo proper therapy, the chances of them dying of depression are higher. The members of staff from Cabarrus Memorial hospital have also benefitted from these affiliation programs because they have added their knowledge making them more qualified. This has produced truly outstanding doctors like Dr. Christy whose demand has been high. With Cabarrus Memorial Hospital having Doctor Christy as an invasive cardiologist, this has an added advantage considering that cardiac surgeons are remarkably few even today. Its primary and secondary service areas have also made it qualify for the upgrading. Statistics show that that Carolinas Medical centre, which was among the few hospitals that offered open heart surgeries and had claimed Cabarrus as its service area attended to only six percentage of patients. This figure is quite small compared to the number of people who had the heart problems in Cabarrus. It clearly shows that Cabarrus had a higher competition as compared to the other hospitals. These far distances called for a change in the cardiovascular area (Vivien,2001).

4. Describe the change in the service area required for the cardiovascular surgery service

Cabarrus Memorial Hospital had to get the open heart surgery program because its service area was highly growing. Data taken from patients who had been receiving treatments showed that patients came from extremely far. In North Carolina, there were about sixteen hospitals that offered open heart surgery. Unfortunately, Cabarrus had only been recognized by one hospital in Charlotte (Tsung, 2006).They are the only ones that claimed the service region of Cabarrus. Charlotte was kilometers away to the south and the more reason Cabarrus needed to come up with their own open heart surgery program. Their residential addresses and the zip code identified where they were coming from. They proved that some of them immensely struggled to get to hospital due to the poor roads and the distances they travelled. Majority came from Kannapolis which is quite far and also concord. Statistics were also taken from those who attended oncology programs, and they gave similar results. After the open heart surgery, the patients were supposed to have a follow up program which involved therapies. With the far distances, they would suffer travelling because of time and also the infrastructures. The population growth remained the determining factor because the researchers had foreseen an eighteen percentage growth which meant the number of open heart surgeries would certainly go up. This research proves that even if the rate of open heart surgery patients was to remain constant. The number of patients would go up due to the rapid increase in the population growth. With the creation of this open heart surgery in Cabarrus, emergency cases from the region would be attended to appropriately without any delays. This will reduce the mortality rate which researchers have shown to be increasing at a high rate. Its hard to forget the job employments that will come with this new program. The population around this area will have access to the added jobs in hospital. They do not have to be senior staff, but rather even the lower cadres like subordinate staff. This means the people of Cabarrus will advocate for this new program. This called for a deeper research by the board of governors before concluding on the program's go ahead (Tsung, 2006).

5. Discuss alternative strategies the Board should consider before making a "go / no-go" decision on the possible addition of the open heart program.

Every new program is met with challenges. The board of governors needed to consult with the patients…