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Fort Hamilton Hospital, built through the efforts of residents 85 years ago, continues to embark on major projects, including an upcoming renovation of its maternity unit and a diabetes service center to open in the former Elder-Beerman building downtown.
At the beginning of the year, the hospital completed a $5 million, two-year renovation and expansion of its emergency department, and in July made the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Hospitals list for 2014-15 — ranking 29th in Ohio and eighth in the Cincinnati region.
The Kettering Health Network, which operates Fort Hamilton, announced in May it joined Health Innovation of Ohio, an independent organization comprised of four additional health systems with the goals to improve patient outcomes and patient engagement in their care while lowering costs.
“Our continuing theme here is we operate ourselves as a full-service, acute care community hospital,” said Mark Smith, president of Fort Hamilton. “We want people who live in Hamilton to know they can get stellar care if they come to this facility.”
A community open house in May celebrated the hospital’s history and original opening day of May 1, 1929 with a cookout, community talks with doctors and tours of new emergency department, Gebhart Cancer Center and the Family Birth Place.
“We are fortunate to be in a network with some great facilities, long-standing facilities,” Smith said.
History
When the original Fort Hamilton Hospital hosted an open house in 1929, a crowd of 14,000 residents lined three city blocks in order to get a tour of the new facility.
The hospital was built through the efforts of a group of dedicated residents, the Butler County Welfare Club. The group formed with the purpose to develop and build another hospital to meet the needs of patients, according to Smith.
The group took on the “monumental task” of raising $600,000 in two weeks, Smith said. That’s the equivalent of $8.1 million in today’s economy.
Smith said at that time the average monthly income was about $100.
Sonja Kranbuhl, director of the Fort Hamilton Hospital Foundation, said it was only five months after the hospital opened in May 1929 that the stock market crash of 1929 began and would last 10 years.
Kranbuhl said after that happened, the hospital administration even accepted fresh produce as payment of bills.
The hospital’s foundation, a nonprofit fundraising arm, has benefited from the community’s generosity over the years which has supported many capital campaigns to increase services at the Eaton Avenue facility.
The foundation raised $1.7 million to support the renovation of the emergency department, and is now preparing to kick off a campaign to raise $650,000 to support renovations to the Family Birth Place.
“Being a small community like this we’re fortunate that we’re truly helping our friends and neighbors,” Kranbuhl said.
The Fort Hamilton Auxiliary, a group of volunteers who run the gift shop, also raised $85,000 this year to honor the 85th anniversary. Those funds have supported lobby improvements and restroom renovations on the first floor, Smith said.
“The community is responding well to changes here,” Kranbuhl said, who’s been foundation director three years. “People rave about their family’s care.”
Coming next
Smith said the community can expect several additions and changes in the next 12 months.
The hospital will begin a renovation to its maternity unit to become more modern. Smith said that includes making the birthing spaces “bright, spacious and comfortable” rooms.
Smith said he’s also excited to bring the community greater diabetes care and education once a Joslin Diabetes Centers at Fort Hamilton Hospital is opened in the former Elder-Beerman building at 150 High St.
The Kettering Health Network has announced it will expand its diabetes services by opening Joslin centers in Hamilton and Beavercreek, Smith said. The Southview Joslin Diabetes Center — in Washington Twp. near Dayton — has operated since 2004.
An estimated 10 percent of Ohio adults have been diagnosed with diabetes, according to Ohio Department of Health. The rate is 8.1 percent of adults in Butler County, according to the latest Healthy Ohio Community Profiles by ODH.
The Joslin center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, offers clinical care, nutrition counseling, diabetes self-management classes, and a support group. Patients undergo a thorough assessment by a certified diabetes educator to determine the most beneficial services, according to the hospital.
“It’s a brand name for diabetes; it’s the gold standard,” Smith said, adding treatment and education of diabetes is a “huge need” for Hamilton.
Recruitment
With just over 930 employees and 179 patient beds, the leadership at Fort Hamilton has made a concerted effort in recent years to recruit more highly-skilled physicians in the areas of infectious disease, cardiology, general surgery, primary care and obstetrics, officials said.
Since Smith took over as president in mid-2013, the hospital has recruited 11 new physicians.
“We’ve had the benefit of great staff,” Smith said. “Our focus (is) on continuing to grow and recruit new physicians to the facility.”
Smith said the need for more physicians has been in response to growing patient demand. He said patient volumes have been on the rise in “virtually every department,” including high increases in cardiology and orthopedics.
“Hamilton is a wonderful town; it’s easy to recruit to,” Smith said.
Dr. Patrick Lytle, executive medical director of cardiology at Fort Hamilton, said in just the two years he’s been heading up the department there’s been “drastic change” in the growth of the cardiology service line.
“We have the ability to offer more services and bring in highly-skilled cardiologists,” Lytle said.
Fort Hamilton Hospital now offers in-house the implanting of pacemaker devices, and within the next six months will add defibrillators for those with poor heart function, Lytle said.
“People don’t have to leave Hamilton to get a pacemaker,” Lytle said.
Just in the last two years, Lytle said the cardiology physicians have increased from implanting one to two pacemakers in a year, to now over 60.
The department is also improving upon its patient wait times in the lobby by revising the way it schedules outpatient stress tests and echocardiography, or ultrasound of the heart used in diagnosis and management of heart diseases, Lytle said.
‘Patient experience’
Smith said that while the emergency department remains the “front door” of the hospital, it’s the patient experience that is really the hospital’s selling card.
“If you have a great experience when you come to a facility’s ED that builds confidence that this facility can handle your other medical needs,” Smith said. “It’s not just about the medical technology and treatments and procedures; it’s about the whole person and that ability to treat the patient with compassion.”
Hamilton resident Rob Wile, also the city’s vice mayor, said he continues to rely on Fort Hamilton as his family’s hospital.
Wile said when Kettering Health, a faith-based organization, and Fort Hamilton entered into a partnership in 2010, the Dayton-based network had clear strengths: a focus on patient quality outcomes and a history of physician collaboration and recruitment.
“I have experienced the quality of Fort no fewer than six times with family members in the past four years and will continue to trust my family’s health to Fort Hamilton,” Wile said. “There is a patient-centric focus that is supported by quality services and very importantly, clear communication to the family members of the patients.”
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