Reflecting on 2023, we have much to be thankful for at Valor Health. We are a committed team of professionals motivated daily to carry out our missions to serve our neighbors. We are proud to support an amazing community. We do it under the strong leadership of our Board of Trustees and with the support of our County Commissioners. We are thankful for our community members who volunteer to serve on the Valor Health Foundation and our Patient and Family Advisory Council. We are also grateful for countless other leaders in the community, such as those who work in public safety, law enforcement, education, and more, who partner with us to multiply our impact on the Gem Community.
2023 was a Difficult Year
The challenges we faced in 2023 were numerous, and we took them on courageously, guided by our values and motivated by our mission to serve people. Providing healthcare in the post-pandemic environment requires steadfast commitment.
We started 2023 in a difficult position, facing staffing and financial challenges due to various factors, including COVID-19 impacts, inflation, staff shortages, and decreasing reimbursements.
Our Physicians Protected New Moms
These factors demand that we execute our strategy to transform from an inpatient-focused model of care into an accessible and affordable healthcare system built on a foundation of high-quality, convenient primary care.
- We decided to stop offering labor and delivery services in our hospital and shift resources to provide enhanced outpatient prenatal and postnatal care within our family medicine clinic.
- Our physicians have worked closely with Gem County mothers to create personalized care plans and have successfully delivered babies at nearby hospitals.
- We’ve expanded our educational class offerings for new parents and have invested in additional training to ensure that our Emergency Department team continues to be ready to serve any pregnant mother who experiences an emergency delivery.
- We successfully conducted two emergency deliveries with healthy outcomes for mom and baby before transfer.
- Several additional obstetric transfers from the Valor Health Emergency Department to nearby partner facilities have occurred, and successful deliveries have taken place following those transfers.
- Dr. Madison Beatty has labor and delivery privileges at West Valley Medical Center and Saint Alphonsus in Nampa and Boise. She also expects her privileges at St. Luke’s Nampa and Meridian to be approved soon.
- Dr. Robin Sebastian has labor and delivery privileges at West Valley Medical Center. She is applying for privileges at Saint Alphonsus in Nampa and Boise and St. Luke’s Nampa and Meridian locations.
Our doctors are leaders and steadfast patient advocates and remain committed to serving our community.
Our Focus: Accessible and Affordable Healthcare
Our strategy to focus on accessible and affordable healthcare, leveraging access to high-quality, convenient primary care, is creating opportunities for Valor Health to expand services and move forward with many programs that will significantly impact the health needs of the Gem Community. We had nearly 75,000 patient care interactions across our health system in 2023; almost 90% of those were outpatient, meaning they did not involve hospitalization.
We have made numerous exciting investments in our health system and our community. Dr. Zachary Fox, Pediatrician, joined our family medicine staff in September. Adding Dr. Fox has helped expand our primary care services to focus on our youngest community members. We are pioneering this collaboration model with the Pediatrics Residency of Idaho program, striving to be an example for rural communities across America. If you made it to our Trunk or Treat ‘n’ Meet event, you know what a great fit Dr. Fox is in our community. He has already built relationships with families and positively impacted lives in Gem County.
Many Services Expanded
Our surgical services continue to grow to meet the demands of our community and deliver noteworthy outcomes in 2023. Our surgeons, whose specialties include orthopedics, general surgery, and foot and ankle/podiatry, operated on nearly 600 patients, all while achieving patient satisfaction scores that beat national benchmarks. Surgical cases range from colonoscopies to total joint replacements. In 2023, we purchased a shoulder positioner, which allows us to do total shoulder replacements and total knee and hip replacements here in Emmett.
Our wound care clinic grows and provides personalized care for a vulnerable population. We brought gynecology services and surgeries back to Valor Health, working in partnership with our family practice providers to ensure local access is available for community patients who need that level of care. In addition to our partners who provide services to Gem County patients in our building, such as cardiology and dermatology, we’ve added a hematology/oncology specialist to care for cancer patients in our valley.
Leadership Adjusts to Handle Change
The challenges of 2023 and our shift in strategy allowed us to make significant organizational changes and overhaul our expense structure to meet the demands of the shifting economic landscape in healthcare. Clinical functions across the entire health system are now aligned under a leadership team that collaborates on system-wide service initiatives, aligning our patient care programs to ensure community members receive well-coordinated care throughout their Valor experience. We restructured our operational day-to-day leadership team, creating opportunities for us to promote clinical leaders from within, supporting their continued growth and advancement. We curbed skyrocketing labor costs by moving away from traveling and contract staff in critical departments, such as the operating room. These changes and the concerted efforts of all team members enabled us to turn challenges into success, focusing on cost containment, doubling our cash reserves, and increasing other operating revenue by more than $2 million for the year.
Many Big Changes in Care at Valor Health
- We successfully earned grant funding to retrofit one patient room in our emergency department and one in our medical inpatient wing, creating two negative-pressure isolation rooms that expand our ability to care for patients with infectious conditions safely.
- In our family medicine clinic, we rebuilt the registration area and updated the exam rooms to enhance patients’ safety and experience.
- We upgraded flooring throughout the hospital with a durable product that allows us to keep our patient care areas even cleaner.
- We installed new GE monitors in our hospital rooms, improving patient care by allowing nurses to monitor patients’ vital signs from the central nurse station in real time. The new monitors will enable nurses to respond to problems immediately.
- In recent years, we rebuilt a portion of our hospital building into an infusion suite, significantly multiplying our capacity to provide infusion services to our patients. This space improved patient access and the care environment.
- In 2023, we made significant progress on our new, expanded pharmacy. This pharmacy will allow us to mix medications for our hospital patients and chemotherapy drugs, opening the door for cancer treatment services to return to our community.
- In 2023, we also laid the groundwork for achieving a Level IV Trauma Certification for our Emergency Department. Similar to the DNV Accreditation we maintain each year for our entire health system, this trauma certification validates that the trauma-related care we provide meets the highest standards for our type of organization.
Updates to the Valor Health Center
We’ve continued to move forward with the development of Valor Health Center, completing architectural designs and working through the approval processes, which will allow us to turn a bare piece of dirt into the home of a state-of-the-art clinic to serve our community. We’re grateful to our City and County staff for the diligent work they’ve done to help this project be a success. We expect to break ground in 2024 and are ecstatic about the enhanced access to care Valor Health Center will bring to our valley.
Valor Health is Active in Gem County
An additional part of our strategy is to continue to build relationships and engage with our community. We love participating in events and supporting the youth in our community. Being the opening day sponsor at the Cherry Festival and a parade participant is a year’s highlight for our staff. We cherish our time at fun events like the Teddy Bear Hospital at Youth Appreciation Day or in the unique ways we can help, such as providing the sports medicine staffing needed for our high school athletics programs, offering free sports physicals for our high school athletes, organizing immunization events for multiple schools, creating collaboration between Valor Health physicians and school nurses, and donating countless hours of important health-related education for our kids.
We’ve kicked off a partnership with PR2TA (Payette River Regional Technical Academy) to support clinical education programs. We are excited about what that will mean for our young people in the future and our ability to serve the community’s growing needs.
For our adults, we have enjoyed providing the Valor Health free flu shot clinic, discounted lab draws, blood drives, and immunization events for government agencies. In addition to being Gem County’s health system, we are proud to be an integral part of the community. Valor has almost 200 employees, and 9 out of 10 employees work in direct patient care or support the patient experience in scheduling, registration, billing, and more.
In 2023, our Valor Health Foundation partnered with the Festival of Trees to create a fantastic community event. We’re thrilled to be partners with the positive, supportive community members who make events like that so special.
Valor Health is Proud to be Local
We are proud of the work we accomplished in 2023 and are excited about the many opportunities 2024 has in store. At Valor Health, we must be strong financial stewards to manage increasing labor and operating costs, attract and retain exceptional personnel, provide care for an underserved community, invest in infrastructure, expand, update, and improve services, enhance the patient experience, and create financial reserves to ensure viability into the future. A key phrase in our mission — “to improve the wellness of all generations, today and into the future” — captures our motivation to make intelligent business decisions. Where there is no margin, there can be no mission.
For decades, we have operated without a penny of taxpayer money. We are proud of this strength and independence, qualities that mirror the community we serve. We ask that you support Valor Health by establishing care with one of our doctors and utilizing our services if you see a different doctor. Tell us your great stories, and let us know if we didn’t meet your expectations so we can address any opportunities for improvement.
Contact Valor Health, Your Community Hospital
Learn more about our community’s services on our website or by scheduling a tour. We’ve had the pleasure of hosting a few community groups for tours of our facility and improvements. We love telling our story, and many are surprised to hear about all the care they can receive in their hometown. If your community group would like a tour, please let us know.
We would love to see you.