(PRESS RELEASE / THE VILLAGE REPORTER)
FIRST YEAR UPDATE … Chad Tinkel (left), president of Parkview Health System’s Community Hospitals of Bryan, Montpelier and Archbold, gave Rotarians an update of Parkview Health’s first year of bringing the Bryan, Montpelier and Archbold hospitals into the Parkview Health System. He was joined by Dr. Carolyn Sharrock-Dosten (second from right), who is president of the local hospital’s medical staff and serves on the board of directors of the local hospital, and Sara Dye (right), who serves as lead of Community Health Improvement. The program was arranged by Karla Ball (second from left), who is also a member of the hospital’s board of directors.
A little over a year ago when Community Hospitals of Williams County became part of the Parkview Health System, it became part of a much larger health system with a footprint in 22 counties in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio.
Chad Tinkel, the president of Parkview’s Bryan, Montpelier and Archbold locations, recently updated Archbold Rotarians on transition and explained how the northwest Ohio locations have benefited from being part of the system.
He explained that even though the system has 14 hospitals with some 16,000 employees, including 1,200 providers based at more than 200 physician locations, the system is built around hubs that provide most of their patients’ healthcare needs close to home.
For example, the Bryan hospital is the system’s eastern hub. When patients need procedures or specialists that aren’t available locally, they can be referred to Fort Wayne for that level of care.
Since Parkview’s involvement, Tinkel said that equipment upgrades across departments have either been made or are being planned. As a result, equipment that was 10 or more years old is replaced with newer, more effective models.
Additionally, the Parkview Health System has developed a plan that should address the physician shortages that most hospitals are experiencing. Specifically, the plan is built around recruiting physicians to the Parkview System to complete their residencies and hopefully stay within the system once their residency is completed.
The plan, he said, is aggressive in that it hopes to increase the number of residencies offered each cycle – starting with fewer than 20 and increasing to more than 60.
He added that the Bryan hospital is looking at specialties, such as psychiatry, where the need is greater than the current supply. The goal is to develop programs to serve those needs.