Text Area 1:

Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines^®–Stroke Silver Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Sierra Vista’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations. Last year, Sierra Vista earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for certification as a Primary Stroke Center, making it the only primary stroke center between Santa Barbara and San Jose.

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and these distinctions address the important element of time,” said Candace Markwith, chief executive officer of Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center. Sierra Vista has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department. This includes always being equipped to provide brain imaging scans, having neurologists available to conduct patient evaluations and using clot-busting medications when appropriate.

To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Quality Achievement Award, Sierra Vista consistently complied for at least one year with the requirements in the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program. These include aggressive use of medications like tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs, and smoking cessation. This twelve-month evaluation period is the second in an ongoing self-evaluation by the hospital to continually reach the 85 percent compliance level needed to sustain this award.

“The American Stroke Association commends Sierra Vista for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients.”

Get With The Guidelines–Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their healthcare professionals’ guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke. Through Get With The Guidelines–Stroke, customized patient education materials are made available at the point of discharge, based on patients’ individual risk profiles. The take-away materials are written in an easy-to-understand format and are available in English and Spanish. In addition, the Get With The Guidelines Patient Management Tool provides access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.

“The time is right for Sierra Vista to be focused on improving the quality of stroke care by implementing Get With The Guidelines–Stroke. The number of acute ischemic stroke patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and a large aging population,” said Markwith.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, long-term disability in the United States.  On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

To celebrate Sierra Vista’s achievements in stroke care, Sierra Vista will host a stroke survivor luncheon on May 23, 2012 in the hospital auditorium from 11:30am-1:00pm. Stroke survivors and their caregivers are invited to attend. For more information and to reserve your spot, call (800) 483-6387.

Text Area 1:

Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines^®–Heart Failure Gold Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The recognition signifies that Sierra Vista has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients with 85 percent compliance for at least 24 months to core standard levels of care as outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.

Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides hospital staff with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to prevent future hospitalizations.

Under Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure, heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics and anticoagulants while in the hospital. They also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.

“The full implementation of national heart failure guideline recommended care is a critical step in preventing recurrent hospitalizations and prolonging the lives of heart failure patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. “The goal of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is to help hospitals like Sierra Vista implement appropriate evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and the number of deaths in these patients. Published scientific studies are providing us with more and more evidence that Get With The Guidelines works.  Patients are getting the right care they need when they need it.  That’s resulting in improved survival.”

“Sierra Vista is dedicated to making our care for heart failure patients among the best in the country and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure program will help us accomplish this goal by making it easier for our professionals to improve the long-term outcome for these patients,” said Sierra Vista’s chief executive office, Candace Markwith.

Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure helps Sierra Vista’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes. The program includes quality-improvement measures such as care maps, discharge protocols, standing orders and measurement tools. This quick and efficient use of guideline tools will enable Sierra Vista to improve the quality of care it provides heart failure patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks.  

According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million people suffer from heart failure.  Statistics also show that, each year, 670,000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 277,000 people will die of heart failure.

Text Area 1:  

Chip Visci, associate vice president for strategic communications at Cal Poly, has been elected chair of the Governing Board at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center for 2012. Visci has served on the Board for three years, the past year as secretary/treasurer.

Rene Bravo, M.D., a pediatrician in San Luis Obispo, will serve as vice chair for a second one-year term and Anita Robinson, chief executive officer of Coast National Bank, will serve as secretary/treasurer.

Newly elected to a three year term starting in 2012 is Bruce Monroy, MD, an OB/GYN in San Luis Obispo. Otto Schueckler, MD, a local orthopedic surgeon was reappointed to serve another three year term.

Continuing Governing Board members include: Jill Bolster-White, executive director of Transitions Mental Health Association; James Hannah, MD, chief of staff at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center; Damian Horstman, MD, vice chief of staff at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center; Tom Jones, regional director of governmental relations at PG&E; Michael Morris, chairman of the board of local law firm Andre, Morris & Buttery; Vance Rodgers, MD, a gastroenterologist in San Luis Obispo; Eric Schwefler, partner at Caliber Accounting and immediate past chair; Gil Stork, president of Cuesta College; Stephen Tidik, MD, a general surgeon in San Luis Obispo; Pat Vaughan, MD, a physician in Morro Bay; Tim Williams, president of Digital West Networks; and Kris Yetter, president of Promega Biosciences in San Luis Obispo. 

Text Area 1:  

Rollie Pirkl has been named Chief Financial Officer at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center. In that capacity he will oversee all financial, accounting, admitting, case management, information systems, health information systems and materials management functions at San Luis Obispo County’s largest hospital and second largest private employer. He began his duties December 1.

“In Rollie Pirkl we have found an innovative financial executive with more than 30 years of experience in health care,” said Candace L. Markwith, Sierra Vista’s Chief Executive Officer. “More importantly, we also get a person whose personal value set will be conducive to his success at our hospital and within the community.”

Most recently he served for three years as the Chief Financial Officer at JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio and the previous two years as CFO at Community Hospital in Los Gatos. Prior to that he was Service Area, Director of Finance for Catholic Healthcare West’s Bay Area Region and also spent 19 years at Redding Medical Center.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Dickinson State University in Dickinson, ND. Pirkl was a long time member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association and also served as President of the Pacheco Union School District Board as well as the treasurer of that school district’s Parent Teacher Group.

Text Area 1:  

Tom Jones, Regional Director of Government Relations for Pacific Gas & Electric and Patrick Vaughan, MD, a family practice physician in Morro Bay, have been elected to the Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center Governing Board.

Jones, well known in the community for his governmental and charitable work at PG&E, oversees the company’s governmental, community and philanthropic activities from Stockton to San Bernardino County and Santa Cruz to Vandenberg Air Force Base. He joined PG&E in 2001 during the height of the energy crisis. Prior to that he worked for then State Senator Jack O’Connell for seven years, ultimately serving as his District Director.

Dr. Vaughan has practiced in Morro Bay since 1982 as an employee of the old San Luis Medical Clinic (later known as Mission Medical Clinic) where he served as president of the organization. Since 2002 he has been in private practice. Dr. Vaughan is a previous Chief of Staff at Sierra Vista and has also been chair of the Bylaws Committee and Chair of Education, organizing Continuing Medical Education for area physicians. He is a graduate of Georgetown Medical School and completed his Family Practice Residency at the University of Massachusetts.

At 164 beds, Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center is the County’s largest hospital and serves as its tertiary referral center and de facto trauma center. It houses the County’s only neurosurgery program, high risk pregnancy program, the only dedicated Pediatric Unit in San Luis Obispo County and the only Level III neonatal intensive care unit between Santa Barbara and Salinas. Through its affiliation with the Cal Poly Athletic Department it is also the Hospital of Choice for Cal Poly athletics.

Text Area 1:  

Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center recently added two experienced professionals to its leadership team. Earlier this month Sierra Vista welcomed Darlene O’Connor as Director, Medical Staff Services and Lisa Vinson, Director, Case Management. 

O’Connor, who relocated to the Central Coast from Saints Medical Center in Lowell, MA will be responsible for working closely with medical staff leadership on all medical staff standards, credentialing of new and renewing physicians to the Sierra Vista medical staff, medical staff policies and procedures and medical staff bylaws.        

She has nearly 10 years of experience in the field. Prior to Saints Medical Center she served in the same capacity at Metrowest Medical Center in Framingham, MA and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, MA.   

O’Connor holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management with a minor in marketing communications from the University of Phoenix in San Jose.

Vinson relocates to the Central Coast from Virginia where she spent the past three years as the Director of Case Management at Southside Regional Medical Center in Petersburg, VA. There she was instrumental in designing a computerized case management software system that strategically assisted that hospital in meeting its quality goals. Prior to that she held the same position at Kindred Hospital in Richmond, VA, was Assistant Director, Complex Care Program at Retreat Hospital in Richmond, VA and spent 17 years as a registered nurse at Medical College of Virginia Hospital, the last eight as a case manager.

Vinson earned her Bachelor of Sience in Nursing at the University of Virginia and also holds a Masters in Business Administration from Averett University.