CHI Mercy Health Logo

News

Home » News

CHI Mercy Hospital: A Year in Review

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: December 28, 2023
Contact: Kayla Beilke
Phone: 701-845-6486
E-Mail: kayla.beilke@commonspirit.org

At CHI Mercy Hospital, we take pride in the work we do for our patients and the services we bring to the community. In order to provide the best care we believe that includes: expanding services, investing in updating our space, and making sure we are up to date on the latest care guidelines. Over the past year we have worked tirelessly to make these goals a reality.

We started off by hiring a full-time Occupational Therapist, Jessie Olson, who has significantly grown the program over the last year. She received her certifications in lymphedema and wound care, which previously wasn’t provided at the hospital. With such high levels of growth in this area we are looking to hire a part time COTA or OT to assist Jessie with her patient volumes.

We have made significant strides towards bringing Mammography services in house for our patient’s annual screenings. We’ve purchased the Mammo machine with the assistance of the CHI Mercy Foundation and utilizing the funds raised at the 2022 Oktoberfest Gala. Now we are waiting to finalize construction plans to renovate the space and create a tranquil experience for the patients.

This year we’ve completed refreshes to our Physical Therapy and Emergency Room spaces. The Physical Therapy gym and waiting room received new furniture, paint, blinds and artwork. The Emergency Room redid their floors, installed new countertops and added a fresh coat of paint.

During 2023, the hospital received a few noteworthy awards including being voted a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital out of all critical access hospitals in the nation. We were one of the first hospitals to complete the “Get with Guidelines” requirements, which are the latest care recommendations for patients regarding stroke and coronary heart disease.

The hospital was nationally recognized by the American Heart Association for its commitment in treating STEMI codes, which are considered the worst forms of heart attacks. We are also proud to announce we’re the first Acute Cardiac Ready facility in the state of North Dakota, possibly even nationally! This designation means that our hospital has shown we can take care of patients upon arrival to the best of the state’s standards when it comes to cardiac issues. With all of these amazing accomplishments in 2023, we can’t wait to see where we will go in 2024. We have a few projects that we believe will help to continue improving services and the quality of care. If you’re interested in being a part of our growing team that enhances care to the Valley City community please review our job postings at the link below.

https://www.commonspirit.careers/search-jobs

CHI Mercy at Oktoberfest Committed to Cardiac Care

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: Sept 5, 2023
Contact: Kayla Beilke
Phone: 701-845-6486
E-Mail: kayla.beilke@commonspirit.org

CHI Mercy at Oktoberfest Committed to Cardiac Care

On October 14th, CHI Mercy Hospital is hosting our annual Oktoberfest Gala to raise money for new cardiac equipment! We are planning a fun evening that includes: dinner, live entertainment, plenty of chances to win prizes, bid on auction items, and hopefully go home with a little extra cash from our raffles! The event will take place from 5:30-10pm at the Valley City Eagles Club. If you are interested in attending please go to: https://www.mercyhospitalvalleycity.org/oktoberfest/ to purchase your tickets today!

Valley City’s dedication to heart health started with the recognition of being named a Cardiac Ready Community. This is a government initiative that requires public access to AEDs, CPR instruction, blood pressure screenings, and transport plans from first responders, EMS and the hospital. CHI Mercy Hospital wanted to do more with this focus, so we became the first and only hospital in North Dakota designated as an Acute Cardiac Ready facility. This means we have proven that we can take care of patients presenting with cardiac issues to the best of the state’s standards. We take this appointment very seriously since such a high number of patients arrive at the hospital with cardiac symptoms and diagnoses.

This spring the hospital was nationally recognized by the American Heart Association for its commitment in treating STEMI codes. These are considered the worst forms of heart attacks since it is caused by a complete block in the coronary artery. Even with these amazing accomplishments under our belt, the hospital has higher goals we hope to achieve. One of these goals is to purchase state-of-the-art heart monitoring equipment for our patients. Please help us support this amazing cause at our Oktoberfest Gala on October 14th!

First Cardiac Ready Acute Care Hospital in North Dakota

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: September 7, 2022
Contact: Kayla Brademeyer
Phone: 701-845-6486
E-Mail: kayla.brademeyer@commonspirit.org

First Cardiac Ready Acute Care Hospital in North Dakota

CHI Mercy Hospital- Valley City is proud to announce it is the first designated Acute Cardiac Ready facility in the state of North Dakota! This designation means that our hospital has shown we can take care of patients upon arrival to the best of the state’s standards, specifically when it comes to cardiac issues. We take this appointment very seriously since such a high number of our patients present to the hospital with cardiac symptoms and diagnoses. This means we can further care for the community and provide everyone the top-notch, excellent services that they deserve.

In order to become an Acute Cardiac Ready Hospital, we filled out an application and had the Division of Emergency Medical Systems personnel come and shadow us to see our processes. They interviewed our ER staff to discuss our procedures and how we respond to certain situations. It was a rigorous test with 42 areas of criteria to pass in order to become designated. Due to our extensive preparedness, we had all the pieces in place and can now call the hospital an Acute Cardiac Ready facility, the first in North Dakota!

Valley City was already designated as a Cardiac Ready Community- which is a government initiative that requires public access to AEDs, CPR instruction, blood pressure screenings, and transport plans for first responders, EMS and the hospital. This initiative was also taken on to better the health of our community to try and introduce preventative care and access to necessary items in case of emergency.

The hospital and its staff would like to thank Alana McClellan for putting in the work she has to help us achieve this. She has been the leader behind the Cardiac Ready Community projects as well as the Acute Cardiac Ready Hospital designation. We love how much she goes above and beyond to really make sure our community is heart healthy.

2023 Top 100 Critical Access Hospital Press Release

For Immediate Release Contact: Kayla Beilke
Executive Assistant
701-845-6486
Kayla.Beilke@commonspirit.org

CHI Mercy Health Valley City Recognized as a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital

3/8/2023 – CHI Mercy Health in Valley City North Dakota announced it has been recognized as a 2023 Top 100 Critical Access Hospital. This nomination was given by The Chartis Center for Rural Health in its annual recognition program that honors outstanding performance among the nation’s rural hospitals based on the results of the Chartis Rural Hospital Performance INDEX™.

“Across the nation, top 100 rural providers continue to serve as a source of inspiration for hospital leadership teams and staff working diligently every day to improve the delivery of care within their local communities,” said Michael Topchik, National Leader, from the Chartis Center for Rural Health. “The list of award winners in each category is as geographically diverse as we’ve seen in some time, which is wonderful to see. We’re thrilled to be able to honor the outstanding efforts of these top performing rural hospitals.”

Now in its 13th year, the INDEX has established itself as the industry’s most comprehensive and objective assessment of rural hospital performance. Leveraging publicly available data, the INDEX is trusted by rural hospitals, health systems with rural affiliates, hospital associations and state offices of rural health across the country to measure and monitor performance across a variety of areas impacting hospital operations and finance.

“The recognition as one of the Top 100 Critical Access Hospitals in the nation furthers our commitment at CHI Mercy Health to providing excellent patient care for Valley City and the surrounding areas.” comments Ryan Fowler, President of CHI Mercy Hospital. “This prestigious recognition follows our recent designations as the first Acute Cardiac Ready hospital in the state of North Dakota, maintaining a Level III Trauma Designation and being voted Best of the Best hospital by our community.”

CHI Mercy Health Valley City looks forward to your continued support as we maintain a focus on improving quality, patient safety and the overall patient experience.

Successful Hiring at CHI Mercy Hospital Valley City

Successful Hiring at CHI Mercy Hospital Valley City

With the introduction of COVID-19 back in 2020, we saw an overwhelming need for health care workers on a national and global scale. With the significant rise in critical patients we watched staff- burnout plague healthcare organizations. We have also been and continue to experience a nationwide nursing shortage, where the demand for nurses will surpass the supply colleges and universities are able to provide. All of these factors combined have put healthcare systems at risk and patient populations potentially in harm’s way.

One saving grace through this time period was traveling nursing staff. These nurses are able to travel around the country providing nursing care to hospitals in need. They are able to help fill gaps in schedules, which in turn keeps hospital doors open.  Even though this was a great resource to use in our time of need, there were some disadvantages to travel staff as well. We have found it is more cost effective to hire and retain staff than to rely on travelers who are not permanent fixtures in our facilities.

With the hiring of Ryan Fowler, CHI Mercy Hospital of Valley City’s President, there was a major push to reduce traveling staff members in our facility. Ryan spearheaded an initiative to hire our own staff members again in Valley City so we wouldn’t have to depend on traveling agencies to staff our hospital. The organization came together to create a plan on how we were going to make this happen.

We started this process by working with the local Economic Development team consisting of Jennifer Feist and Kara Anderson. They helped us get in contact with the local Job Service pages to promote our open positions, they posted our job listings on their Indeed page, and helped us with key points to touch on for job descriptions. We worked on increasing our posting on our own social media and Indeed pages. With this we have seen a lot of success!

In the past two months we have hired 13 new people to different positions around the facility. This has been a variety of professionals including nurses, certified nursing assistants, cooks, radiology technicians, and a new director of Human Resources. Many of these people have come from other areas looking to work in Valley City. We even have a new international nurse who has come to our community with her family from the Philippines.

The hospital would like to thank our Economic Development team for their efforts in helping us hire this significant amount of people in such a small amount of time. We want to thank our employees who worked together to come up with a plan and executed it well. We also want to thank Job Service ND for posting our open positions on “Barnes County Featured Jobs of the Day”.

We are so happy to have many new faces in the facility but also out in the community! We do still have a few positions available at the hospital. If you or someone you know is interested in a position please apply at the link below.

https://www.commonspirit.careers/search-jobs/Valley%20City%2C%20ND/35300/4/6252001-5690763-5058187-5062292/46×92331/-98×00315/5/2

Fowler Named President of CHI Mercy Health Valley City

VALLEY CITY, ND – CHI Mercy Health Valley City is pleased to announce the appointment of Ryan Fowler as president of CHI Mercy Health Valley City effective March 21, 2022.

Fowler brings to the position more than twenty years of healthcare experience and an extensive background in quality, safety and risk management. He recently served as chief administrative officer for Lower Umpqua Hospital District of Peace Health in Reedsport, Oregon, where he oversaw the organization improve its patient, quality and engagement scores while completing much needed capital projects. Prior to that, Ryan worked for LifePoint Health as assistant administrator/chief operating officer for Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital and as administrative director of quality for the Wyoming Market.

Ryan earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies and a master’s degree in Public Administration, both from Idaho State University, Idaho. He is a member of the National Association of Healthcare Quality, the Association of Healthcare Accreditation Professionals, and the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Archived News