10 At Peace Health, Our Patients Expect And Deserve A Seamless Flow Of Care
At Peace Health, our mission is to put patients and their families at the center of care. We do this by fostering care driven by quality expertise and achieving accountable financial sustainability. Fitch believes that management is executing on $300 million in targeted improvements and should achieve operational EBITDA margins of 3%.
Home Care
Home health care can help your loved one recover from surgery, illness or injury and maintain their independence. The services are typically covered by Medicare and other health insurances. Home care is provided by professional caregivers who are trained and certified to work for agencies or healthcare facilities. Informal caregivers may be friends, family or community members who step in to help with daily activities. Professional caregivers are often trained nurses or home health aides (CHHA) and have specific qualifications.
Nurses At Peace Health Sacred Heart in Springfield are currently engaged in an informational picket over pay and contract issues. They are seeking the same wage increases as their in-hospital counterparts. This is the fourth time nurses at Sacred Heart have gone on strike in the past year. This includes a seven-day walkout last October. The hospital has also shut down 30 beds at the facility as part of a systemwide effort to boost profitability.
Urgent Care
The facility will remain open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and will extend its evening hours as staffing increases. It will serve patients who have no insurance as well as those with Medicaid and Medicare, a service not available at other urgent cares in the area.
The new clinic will be a three-mile commute from West Eugene to the University District. PeaceHealth is encouraging people to use public transportation, saying they will have plenty of parking in the nearby garage and the Lane Transit District bus system has an EMX stop at Hilyard and 11th Avenue.
The company says it’s working on plans to offer services at other locations in the region, including one in Springfield. It’s also planning to build a four-story ambulatory care center in east Vancouver, with primary care and walk-in medical clinics and space for imaging and urgent care. That project would cost about $170 million and is estimated to bring in $250 million in revenue over nine years.
Primary Care
If you’re in need of a health check-up, consider seeing your primary care provider first. They can handle a variety of concerns and may be able to get you seen faster or help you find the right specialist for your needs. If your PCP can’t see you, or you have an illness or injury that can’t wait, you’ll likely find it easier to access the care you need at a PeaceHealth Same Day Care clinic. These walk-in care centers are open weekdays and offer online scheduling for current patients.
Diego Aviles, MD, is a family medicine doctor who enjoys taking care of entire families from babies to seniors. He is committed to getting to know his patients and partnering with them on their health journey. He is also passionate about promoting mental health. He earned his medical degree from Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados. He did his residency at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington.
Emergency Care
Peace Health River Bend Annex provides urgent care services and also offers many common lab services to help diagnose patients’ symptoms. It accepts most major insurances and self-pay. Vancouver-based health care system PeaceHealth has reached an agreement with the Washington Attorney General to refund tens of thousands of low-income patients who paid for hospital bills they were likely eligible to have refunded. Washington’s charity care law says residents whose household incomes are less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level can apply for financial assistance to cover their out-of-pocket medical costs.
PeaceHealth plans to close Sacred Heart University District Hospital in Eugene on Dec. 1, citing financial losses, and moving the hospital’s emergency department to its RiverBend Medical Center in Springfield. The health system will keep medical clinics and a behavioral health unit open on the University District site.
What’s Next?
At Peace Health, we put the individual and what they value most at the center of their care. We strive for quality expertise and accountable financial sustainability. The system has been struggling with unsustainable losses, and recently announced plans to move some services out of its University District hospital in Eugene. It will offer employees at the affected clinics the opportunity to move to Riverbend.