Please join us in welcoming board-certified internal medicine physician Tierney Lake, M.D., and certified physician assistant Rebecca Goranson, PA-C, MPH, to Mercy.

Dr. Lake joined Mercy’s team of hospitalists on Sept. 1.

She earned her undergraduate degree in cellular and molecular biology from Fort Lewis College. Dr. Lake earned her Doctor of Medicine degree and completed her internal medicine residency at the University of Colorado at Aurora, CO.

Prior to joining Mercy, Dr. Lake served as an internist at Community Hospital in Grand Junction, CO.

In her free time, Dr. Lake enjoys trail running, mountain biking, backpacking and skiing. She and her husband have one 13-week old daughter and two labs.

Rebecca joined Mercy Orthopedic Associates’ Foot & Ankle Center on Sept. 30.

Rebecca specializes in both orthopedics and urgent care.

She earned her undergraduate degree in religion from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. Rebecca received both her Master of Science in Public Health and Master of Science in Physician Assistance Studies degrees from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, AL.

Prior to joining Mercy, Rebecca served as a physician assistant at Orthopaedic Associates of the Lakelands and at Doctor’s Care both located in Greenwood, SC. She previously worked with Dr. Bret Smith, foot and ankle surgeon, Mercy Orthopedic Associates' Foot and Ankle Center, for 5 ½ years before relocating to upstate South Carolina.

Throughout her medical career, Rebecca has contributed to various medical publications and participated in medical conferences and speaking engagements.

In her free time, Rebecca enjoys gardening.

Please join us in welcoming Tierney Lake, M.D., and Rebecca Goranson, PA-C, MPH, to the Mercy Family.
 

Change. We’ve faced a lot of it lately and the reality is we’ll face more. The following quote, attributed to American author John Maxwell, resonates with me: “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”

As health care workers we know about change. Life altering changes occur within the walls of our hospital and clinics daily. We know acutely both the benefits and the pitfalls associated with it. The business of health care can be difficult, but we face the challenges because of our desire to help others.

Lately some in our community have expressed publicly their frustration, and their fear of what Mercy’s future may hold. I realize that some of you are experiencing these same frustrations and fears, and I want to talk about them.

I encourage you to attend one of the following Town Halls in conference rooms A and B and share what’s on your mind:

• 9:00 a.m. Oct. 16
• 7:30 a.m. Oct. 18
• 5:00 p.m. Oct. 28

“Poet Robert Frost was awaiting admittance … into a student fraternity and was told confidentially that only one factor was delaying his entry: the fact that he took long walks in the woods by himself … He was caught being an individual, with an inner life of his own, instead of the dead and public machine life of joining a crowd … When they asked him what he did while walking alone in the woods, he was not so foolish as to admit the truth that he was guilty of writing poetry there. Instead, he saved the day and won his fraternity acceptance by replying: ‘Gnawing the bark off trees.’”

Robert Frost was born in the latter part of the 19^th century, but it appears to be the case that even in what may seem to us a simpler era than our own, a person who felt the need to spend time alone was considered odd. For Frost, and for many others, alone time is essential for creativity, emotional and physical renewal, and for connecting with soul. I’m not aware of there being such a thing as a “spiritual Fit Bit,” but if there were, it might measure the premise that taking long, slow, solitary walks to nowhere in particular is a good way to nurture our spiritual health.

Frost was “caught being an individual.” Though he wanted to gain entry into a fraternity, and thus was aware of his need for community, he valued spending long hours in nature by himself. There is a gravitational pull, a conventional wisdom, a societal ethos that calls us to join in, to think like, and to shape our lives by the culture’s standards. Although there can be good in this, without soul time we are apt to lose touch with the sacred depth that is the place of the divine within.

It has been said that the superior person understands what is right, while the inferior one understands what will sell! It is important to be practical and reasonable, but it is essential to be spiritual, because without a sense for this dimension of our self, we run the risk of being strangers to ourselves and estranged from meaningful relationships with others. Being spiritual is not about rising above and beyond the practical but going deep within it. When we are down-to-earth, when we are sensually present to life, when we give ourselves room to reflect and not just analyze, we are close to that which makes us the unique individuals we are.

In what is arguably his most famous poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Frost writes: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” We don’t have to walk in the woods to connect with our soul, but if we are to be our best self, we may at times have to take a road less traveled – one characterized by quiet, solitude and reflection – lest we fall prey to the “dead public machine life.”

Tom Stella, NCC
Corporate Chaplain    
tomstella37@gmail.com

Please read this positive review praising Dr. Julie Pysklo and Mercy Internal Medicine staff:

"My husband and I have received outstanding care from Dr. Julie Pysklo and the staff at Mercy Internal Medicine since we arrived in Durango 2 ½ years ago."

We are proud to announce that Mercy Regional Medical Center has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for Hospital Accreditation. In addition, Mercy Home Health & Hospice of Mercy and the Mercy Hospice House have earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for Home Care Accreditation. These Gold Seals were earned by demonstrating continuous compliance with The Joint Commission’s performance standards. The Gold Seal is a symbol of quality that reflects a health care organization’s commitment to providing safe and quality patient care.

Every three years, The Joint Commission performs an unannounced inspection of each of these Mercy facilities to ensure we are meeting quality and safety performance standards for patients. This triennial survey was completed at Mercy from July 16, 2019 to July 19, 2019.

Though The Joint Commission’s visit may have caught some by surprise, because of the truly exceptional care provided on a daily basis Mercy was survey ready. In our tradition of excellence, the staff of the hospital, home health and hospice repeatedly impressed surveyors with the safe and compassionate care provided. During the survey associates, advanced practice providers, and physicians demonstrated how they go above and beyond in providing care to every patient.

This is no small achievement and it takes each and every one of you to accomplish it. Without you and your daily dedication to the communities we serve, the survey would not have gone as well as it did. Thank you and congratulations on a job well done!
 
- Board Quality Committee

Evidence-based error prevention techniques are designed to dramatically reduce individual errors, and thereby reduce events of patient harm. Health care systems that have adopted these proven techniques have seen 50 to 80 percent reductions in events of preventable harm to their patients. 

For us to achieve our goal of Zero Harm, it is required that all associates, leaders and medical providers attend and participate in a Universal Skills training session. This week you will receive an email from HealthStream (HS-Alerts) indicating that a new assignment has been loaded to complete. You will use the LEARN platform to register for one of the in-person sessions offered at your facility. Space is limited for these sessions, so you are encouraged to sign up early.

Thank you in advance for your support in leading our efforts to prevent harm and we look forward to seeing you at an upcoming Universal Skills training session.

Questions?
Contact your direct supervisor or Crystal Robertson, Quality Director, at CrystalRobertson@Centura.org.
 

The 2019 theme for International Infection Prevention Week is "Vaccines are Everybody’s Business". Vaccines present an easy way to stay healthy and prevent infections from spreading. Help us celebrate all the infections prevented and lives saved this year!
 
Everyone needs to be vaccinated. Life-protecting vaccinations are recommended throughout our lives, beginning at birth before newborns leave the hospital. Adults also need to be immunized throughout their lives—the majority of Americans who die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases are adults.
 
Vaccinations can protect you, your family, and your patients from serious and preventable diseases like the flu, pertussis, and many others. Vaccines can reduce the risk of diseases ranging from severe bacterial infections, persistent and painful viruses, and even cancer.
 
Everyone over the age of 6 months should get a flu vaccine each year—it’s the best way to prevent the spread of the flu. A flu vaccine is needed this often because flu viruses are constantly changing. It’s not unusual for new flu viruses to appear each year. The flu vaccine is formulated to keep up with the flu viruses as they change.
 
Remember: It is much easier and more cost effective to prevent a disease rather than to treat it.
 
What you can do?
As health care professionals, you should:

• Get your flu shot and stay up-to-date on your vaccinations.
• Encourage your patients to get their flu shots, as well.
• Learn the importance of the flu shot.
• Remind your patients to stay up-to-date on all their vaccinations.

• Vaccine safety (updated resources)—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Adult vaccinations—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Handouts for patients & staff—Immunization Action Coalition
• Ask About Vaccination—Infection Prevention and You
• Herd Immunity Fact Sheet

Trick-or-Treat! Child Care is heading your way,
We hope you can join us in Halloween day!
 
If you would like to know more about this annual tradition,
Please read along as we have changed up the mission.
 
In previous years we took our parade inside,
But as cute as this was, we left feeling quite fried!
 
Please take a moment to meet us outside this year,
We guarantee you will smile from ear to ear!
 
Following the curved sidewalk of the main front doors,
We will pause for a moment to collect that candy of yours!
 
To be respectful of patients heading in or out,
We’ll walk slowly and remember not to shout.
 
We will be leaving our school at 9:30ish,
We hope to see you there, that is our greatest wish!
 

Starting Monday, Oct. 21, you will see a refreshed format for system and local email messages sent from our official communication mailboxes.

Reducing the amount of emails to your inbox and maintaining an emphasis on newsletters remains a top priority; however, in the event we need to send a stand-alone email, it should catch your eye. This new design distinguishes our entity and system communications from other emails and letterheads.

Large organizations like Centura Health and Mercy always have internal messages to share, and while communicating effectively to all audiences in such diverse roles can present challenges, there are some fundamental principles that guide our overall corporate and internal communications strategy.  

As you might expect in a health care organization, the majority of our associates work in a clinical environment. Computer access and time is limited, because most of their time is spent performing duties at the heart of our Mission – delivering exceptional patient care to our community. These critical colleagues need information that is clear, concise, relevant and timely.

The communications team is dedicated to providing relevant and timely information while also limiting the number of individual email communications that get circulated throughout our connected ecosystem every day. Our focused strategy places an emphasis on locally based newsletter communications, which allows us to use fewer resources to routinely channel important information and creates a simpler, less distracting and more reliable communication cadence for all associates – but particularly for our highly mobile clinicians.

Our team distributes local and system-wide information using the following methods:

• Weekly newsletters at each of our hospitals, our enterprise and service center offices and ambulatory services
• A bi-weekly newsletter for all our leaders
• A news feed on My Virtual Workplace

The results are in! Congratulations to the 25 lucky winners of the September Code You drawing. View a list of winners here.
 
Enter the drawing
Each month through June we’ll be awarding 25 Amazon gift cards valued at $50 each, just for completing well-being activities through your Code You account (one drawing entry per challenge completed). Activities can be found on the Code You platform under “Add Programs.”

Keep track of your completed programs on the Rewards tab of your Code You account. Visit your Code You account often and support your whole health every day!

Click here to learn more about the evolved Code You well-being program, which has been redesigned to be more flexible, convenient and customizable to better meet the needs of your full life.

Questions?
Email CodeYou@centura.org or call 303-673-8080.
 

We must be good stewards of our benefits – keeping costs low for ourselves and one another. As part of these efforts, we routinely affirm that dependents covered by our benefit plan are truly eligible for the plan(s) in which they are enrolled and/or are exempt from the spousal surcharge.

We are partnering with Consova, a third-party agency, to perform a dependent eligibility verification of all dependents (spouses/civil union partners included) covered by Centura Health medical, dental and/or vision plans. This audit will also validate that the spousal surcharge is appropriately applied.

You may be asked to provide: Marriage certificate; Federal tax return; Birth certificate; Adoption certificate; Court order/QMCSO; and/or The Benefit Verification and Information Release Authorization Form

Here’s what you’ll need to do
If you cover a dependent and/or spouse, you will receive a mailing from Consova at your home address (as listed in Lawson Employee Self-Service) around Oct. 23. Upon receipt, please review your list of dependents to ensure they meet the eligibility requirements.

You will then need to follow the instructions provided to submit the required documents for dependent eligibility verification. In addition, if you cover a spouse and currently do not pay a spousal surcharge, you will also need to submit documentation to confirm that your spouse is not eligible for employer-sponsored health coverage elsewhere.

Any and all information you provide to Consova is kept secure and confidential.

What if I do not respond?
Consova is focused on making this necessary process as easy as possible for you. The deadline for response will be included in your letter. Please understand that no response could result in termination of coverage for your dependent(s) and/or the spousal surcharge of $100/month ($46.15 per pay period) being applied.

Why is Centura Health conducting an audit?
The cost of care continues to rise across our country, and we continue to evaluate ways to keep our costs low for our incredible people. Covering ineligible dependents increases cost, which are shared, in part, by our associates, through premium contributions. So that you have affordable options when it comes to your health care coverage, we need to ensure that only eligible dependents are enrolled in our plans.

Questions or comments?
Please watch your mail for a packet from Consova, our third party administrator. This mailing will provide details to support you through this process and contact information for Consova’s Dependent Eligibility Verification Assistance Center.

Mercy associates Vanessa Hamer and Jill Nelson will be available to weave silk shimmers into your hair from noon to 1:00 p.m. in Mercy's front lobby on the following dates:

• Oct. 17
• Oct. 21
• Oct. 22
• Oct. 28
• Oct. 31

Bidding for Mercy's MOX Auction (Mercy Online AuXion for Tanzania) will begin at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16 and run through 11:59 p.m.  Friday, Oct. 25. 

Now is your opportunity to bid on the amazing items donated by your Mercy peers including:

• Trickle Creek Ranch Black Angus Beef Package (approximately 17 lbs.) Value: $120 (Donated by Missy McMenimen)
• Sierra Railroad #3 Double Header photo taken Sept. 19, 2019 by Dr. Martin Pirnat Value: $300
• Handmade stitched seed bead earrings (gold, turquoise, red, and black) Value: $75 (Donate by Amber DeHerrera)
• Framed Buffalo picture Value: $200 (Donated by Dr. Kim Furry)
• AND SO MUCH MORE!

As you age, you naturally lose muscle strength and balance. If you are beginning to feel a loss in your sense of balance, Mercy Sports Medicine’s balance program is for you.

Six Weeks to Better Balance and a Stronger Self is designed for anyone who wants to improve their balance and is geared toward those who are starting to decondition as a result of aging. A new session will take place from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays beginning Nov. 4. 

Participants can expect different stations to challenge their balance in a safe environment. Examples include: Holding a single-leg stance while practicing on a weight shift station which allows participants to improve their balance when navigating every day areas of challenge such as curbs. The program is great training to successfully handle simple tasks such as walking across an uneven lawn.

Each session will include education and three to four exercises you can to do safely at home. Most importantly, you will leave each session with the confidence to stay active.

The cost of the series is $150. Call to reserve your spot today: 970-259-9530.

Join Mercy Sports Medicine (MSM) for the "Mobilize and Recover" class at 5:15 p.m. Oct. 21 at MSM, 327 S. Camino del Rio.

What to expect? Massage. Mobility. Recovery. Release. Relief. 

Using RAD myofascial release tools to provide controlled, acute point release, move waste materials out of soft tissues and encourage proper spinal alignment. Learn how to unlock your body’s true movement potential. 

• Release restrictions
• Flush out built-up toxins
• May relieve muscular pain
• Benefit blood and lymph flow

•  Promote relaxation
• Create a healing response
• Relieve trigger points
• Help mobilize joints

Please join us for Mercy Regional Medical Center Trauma Services' Annual Trauma and Critical Care Conference.

WHAT: Trauma and Critical Care Conference
WHEN: Thursday, Oct. 17
             11:30 a.m.- 5:30 p.m.
             AND
             Friday, Oct. 18
             8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
WHERE: Fort Lewis College's Student Union Ballroom

This program offers comprehensive knowledge and skills in the treatment of critically ill and injured patients, offering an ideal mix of the current standard-of-care principles and cutting edge information and technology for evaluation, diagnosis and management. To view a schedule, click here.

Objectives

• Describe methods to properly assess diverse trauma, critical care and emergency medicine patients.
• Discuss care priorities related to non-accidental trauma with consideration for management of victim, perpetrator, scene safety and provider wellbeing.
• Identify considerations for end-of-life trauma care.
• Incorporate best practice clinical guidelines to stabilize patients with various types of traumatic injuries.

• Physicians
  • Centura Health CME is accredited by the Colorado Medical Society to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Centura Health CME designates this live activity for a maximum of 12.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
• Nursing
  • Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing
  • Provider #CEP16170 for 12 contact hours
• Pre-Hospital
  • 12 EMS continuing education hours approved

• Centura Associate
  • $150 after October 3, 2019
• Non-Centura Associate
  • $175 after Oct. 3, 2019

An annual influenza vaccine is the best defense against seasonal flu, keeping you healthy and making meaningful impacts in the lives of those around us. It is our responsibility to the people we serve to help protect the whole health of our communities by preventing the spread of illness.
 
Make sure to get your flu shot by Nov. 15. 

All associates must submit proof of flu vaccination or an approved religious or medical exemption by Friday, Nov. 15. Receiving a flu shot or submitting an approved exemption is a condition of employment. View Centura Health's Influenza Vaccination policy here.

Vaccination clinics have begun and will continue across the system through the end of October. Associates and providers may attend any Centura Health-sponsored clinic to receive your annual vaccination.

Mercy flu clinics will take place on the following dates:

• 6:00-10:00 a.m. Oct. 17 in Conference Room C
• 6:00-10:00 a.m. Oct. 29 in Conference Room C

Keri McCune, Mercy's infection prevention manager, recently received her flu vaccination. Have you?