Telluride Med Center: Continued Growth

25 Jan Telluride Med Center: Continued Growth

The Telluride Medical Center experiences continued growth and maintains high patient satisfaction in 2015.

The Telluride Medical Center (TMC) experienced yet another busy year in 2015. 

The Primary Care (PC) and Emergency Departments (ED) saw increases in patient visits of 14% and 8%, respectively over the previous year. The offices of the administrative staff were moved off site to make room for additional PC exam rooms. The TMC phone system surpassed 1,000,000 calls. All this, and the TMC continues to receive high patient satisfaction ratings.

Patient visits continue to rise annually for the TMC.

The 14% increase in patient visits for PC equated to 2,100 more appointments than the previous year. Of the additional PC patient visits, roughly 2/3rds were from residents of the primary service area (PSA). The PSA is defined as the Telluride R-1 school district. The 8% increase for ED equated to 330 additional appointments.  Over 50% of ED visits are generated by individuals from outside of the PSA. Between 2010 and 2015, PC and ED patient visits have increased 49% and 28% respectively.  Forecasts anticipate a 35% increase in patient visits over the next 10 years.  The chart below illustrates patient visit growth over the past 10 years.

In an effort to accommodate TMC’s continued growth, the administrative offices were moved off site to make room for additional PC examination rooms. The entire facility at 500 West Pacific is now dedicated to providing patient care. Interdepartmental synergy and staff retention are credited for enabling TMC staff to continue to function at a high level despite the need for additional space to provide services.

As demand for services continues to rise, so does the number of calls.

In December 2015, the TMC phone system logged its 1,000,000th call. This milestone is comprised of both incoming and outgoing calls made over the previous six years. The vast majority of calls are fielded by TMC’s patient relations staff during normal business hours. This translates to about one call per minute.  Most calls are related to appointment scheduling, medical questions, billing and assistance with filling prescriptions.

According to Reva Saunders, TMC’s Patient Relations Supervisor “Depending on the time of day or year, the patient relations team has between two and seven staff answering incoming phone calls. Our team strives to answer calls in a timely fashion, but may be assisting other patients. The patient relations staff is here to help you or to direct you to someone who can.”

With so many calls being received by staff, the TMC encourages patients to take advantage of the patient portals when not seeking to schedule an appointment. The patient portals enable users to conveniently pay bills, access medical records and test results, and ask questions of their medical provider online. Patient portals can be found on the homepage of the TMC website at http://www.tellmed.org/.

As patient volume continued to rise in 2015, TMC consistently received high scores on patient satisfaction surveys, averaging 4.7-4.8 out of a possible 5.

Each patient has the opportunity to provide feedback regarding providers and services on patient satisfaction postcards or via online survey. TMC has solicited patient feedback regarding providers and services from over 3,000 patients since 2009 with 99% of feedback being overwhelmingly positive.

“I’m very gratified by the feedback we receive via our patient satisfaction online surveys and postcards. Our patients are overwhelmingly positive about the care and compassion of our providers and staff. Over my almost 40 year career, I have never seen such positive feedback. Ironically, it is the negative feedback that helps us improve – it is just that we get very little of that. A big thank you to each of our staff who make this possible,” said TMC Executive Director Gordon Reichard.

To accommodate continued growth, the Telluride Hospital District (THD) has plans to build a new Telluride Regional Medical Center in Mountain Village.

Building costs are estimated at $32 million. The optimum financing strategy for the new facility is one that includes a combination of philanthropy, grants, THD reserve funds, and general obligation bonds. A philanthropic capital campaign is planned to raise between $16 million and $25 million toward the project. THD intends to bring a general obligation bond to ballot in November 2016.

For more information about the Telluride Medical Center or to access the patient portals, visit http://www.tellmed.org/.