Inpatient Hospital Care: We’re Here When You Need Us

A hospital stay is something few of us would ever choose. But when hospitalization is necessary, it’s comforting to know that Prowers Medical Center is standing by with the physicians, support staff, facilities, expertise and compassionate care you and your family need, right here in Lamar.

“Many patients who have experienced being in a large hospital in another town and then experienced being an inpatient at Prowers Medical Center have told our staff that they have been happier with the individualized, compassionate and prompt care that they receive here,” said Naomi Fowler, Registered Nurse and Prowers Medical Center’s Acute Care Services Manager.

Our Patients

Our Medical/Surgical team provides care to inpatients for a variety of reasons.

• Some patients have had surgery and are admitted here for postoperative care for a night or two afterward.
• Others are acutely ill, suffering from serious respiratory, cardiac or gastrointestinal issues, for example.
• Some have relatively minor traumatic injuries, and because Prowers Medical Center is now a Designated Level IV Trauma Center, these patients are able to receive inpatient care here. Before receiving our trauma designation, these patients would have been required to be transferred to a trauma center.
• Still others have chronic conditions such as diabetes, congestive heart failure or COPD. These patients sometimes need hospital care to be restabilized.
• And finally, some of our hospital patients may need to transition from acute inpatient care (at Prowers Medical Center or another hospital) to swing-bed care because they need additional rehabilitation time before they’re able to return home. In such cases, our hospital team can provide inpatient physical therapy and other needed services so that these patients don’t have to be placed in a nursing home or a rehab facility far from home.

Our Team

The Prowers Medical Center inpatient care team includes hospitalist physicians. These are internal medicine and family practice doctors who oversee the care of hospitalized patients. Hospitalist coverage is maintained around-the-clock, 365 days a year.

A team of registered nurses and certified nursing assistants provide bedside care during each shift.

In addition, a whole host of support staff helps care for our inpatients, ranging from dietary staff and imaging technicians to physical and respiratory therapists, a pharmacist and pharmacy technicians, environmental services and more.

Inpatients also receive case management services. “We work behind the scenes with everyone on a patient’s care team, as well as the patient and their family, to ensure that the patient is receiving quality care while reducing communication barriers,” said Dennisha Longoria, Prowers Medical Center’s Lead Case Manager. “We also prepare a patient for discharge upon their admission to ensure a smooth and safe transition is in place prior to their departure from our facility. This may include arranging appropriate home care services, nursing home placement, hospice support, medical equipment supplies or behavioral health services. After discharge there is continued follow-up with patients to coordinate their post- discharge visits, make sure they’re doing well and address any additional needs they may have.”

For individuals who are not current hospital patients, Case Management can assist with resources and disposition needs prior to an admission. They can also

make referrals to other community resources for those who may need extra support but don’t meet acute- care criteria warranting a hospital admission.

Quality Care Close to Home

Prowers Medical Center’s core values are honesty, commitment, compassion and enthusiasm. “Many of our team members have grown up in our community,” Fowler said. “They uphold all these values, and they genuinely care about our hospital and taking care
of our community members. We often provide care
to people we are familiar with, and a lot of patients express how comforting it is to have someone they know and trust taking care of them.

“We strive to provide care to our patients in the same way that we would want our own family members
to be cared for,” Fowler added. “Our hospital is also supportive of and encourages continuing education for our staff, providing safe, evidence-based care and continuous quality improvement processes.”

Fowler emphasized that the Prowers Medical Center inpatient team goes above and beyond. “Over the years I have seen our employees do so many things that are outside of their expected duties and job descriptions,” she said. “They have laughed and cried with patients and their families, celebrated with them, hugged them, and prayed with them at times. They have decorated rooms to cheer patients up, sung with them, and so many other things that are not things that can be learned in a classroom. All of these actions come from the heart.”

We provide:

• post-surgical care
• acute illness care
• rehabilitation care
• chronic illness care
• Level IV traumatic injury care
• discharge planning and follow-up