Page 2 - NRMC Today-Spring 2024

Message from the CEO
Kirk Soileau
Dear Friends,
A strong hospital system is not something we can build in a silo. It is something we must build with our community, and that is what we have been doing at NRMC over the past decade.
As one of the most comprehensive rural hospitals in the state, we strive to provide care that best matches our community’s health needs. These needs are much bigger than traditional inpatient and outpatient services, emergency care, and obstetrics. We realized 10 years ago, that we could and should begin expanding services to bring in highly specialized care as well. This level of specialization is unusual for a rural hospital, but we’ve been successful in doing so.
Since 2013, we have actively discerned the health needs of our community and region.
As a result, we created a NRMC physician network to help grow key service lines including orthopedics, pulmonology, general surgery, ENT, OB/GYN, internal medicine, and urology. We’ve added technology such as high definition CT scanners, robotics for laparoscopic surgery, total joint replacement, and more. We’ve put hospitalists in place to guide inpatient care
from admission to discharge, ensuring timely and effective care plans. We’ve initiated new services such as wound care, a sleep lab, pain management, urgent care, and inpatient dialysis. We’ve staffed a remarkable Intensive Care Unit which now can care for much higher levels of acuity. We’ve expanded our scope of care by acquiring the Cancer Center and constructed a Multispecialty Clinic and new Wound Care Center.
Most importantly, we’ve developed our team of Associates, embraced diversity, and created leadership training. We have defined our culture as being authentic in caring for each other, our patients and families. We’ve added leadership roles in patient advocacy and navigation, because a positive patient experience is critically important to the healing process.
We are growing, evolving, and improving each day, but we are not perfect. Embedded in our culture is a non-punitive approach to minimizing variations in clinical practice. We huddle and discuss issues as they come up and immediately make changes to improve our processes. Accountability and flexibility go hand-in-hand at NRMC, and this helps us be successful and stay on course in further developing our culture of caring.
At NRMC, we all have personal reasons why we choose to work in healthcare, and more specifically in Natchitoches. We each have “why stories” that motivate us to do a little more, go a little farther, and care a little deeper than anyone would expect. Our Associates’ stories are the stories of our community. From these stories, NRMC continues to grow and define itself in 2023 as one of the most remarkable hospitals in the state taking care of one of the best communities in Louisiana. Now is the time for all of us to work together to ensure our region becomes one of the healthiest in the nation.
We are conducting another Community Health Needs Assessment similar to the one we did in 2017. We will use the knowledge and insights we gain to strategically help move our region towards better health. Our goal is for everyone to come together to create a better quality of life.
Board of Commissioners
Michael Newton
Chairman
Ronald Corkern
John Luster
Chris Ingram, MD
Samuel Jackson
Valencia Sarpy Jones Wayne Halm
Parish Council Representative
NRMC Leadership Team
Kirk Soileau
Chief Executive Officer
Brent Probasco
Chief Financial Officer
Phyllis Mason, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Sarah LaCour
Chief Nursing Officer
Nanette Bienvenu
Vice President of Outpatient and Continuum of Care Services
Tom Matuschka
Vice President of Business Development and Philanthropy
MISSION
Inspiring Excellence Everyday
VISION
Natchitoches Regional Medical Center, your first choice for care!
1 SPRING 2024