Petersburg Medical Center Newsletter
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▲ Phil and his son Joe enjoying winter hiking on Raven’s Roost trail.
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NEWSLETTER BANNER PHOTO: This highly CAPABLE team works together to support seniors in Petersburg to age in place. Pictured left to right are: Jessica Baker (Occupational Therapist), Julie Walker (Community Wellness Coordinator), Kirsten Rioux-Testoni (Home Health Manager), and Stephanie Romine (Home Health Nurse).
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MESSAGE FROM THE CEO
Exciting Changes Coming to PMC – electronic systems and the
return of the Health Fair
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COVID
Petersburg has remained steady in its number of COVID cases within the community this past month. PMC worked closely with the Borough to support Mountain View Manor during their outbreak, including increased testing and treatments for sick residents and staff. PMC currently has a short supply of in-house rapid tests, so is implementing new strategies to ensure testing availability for community and staff. Please call our COVID-19 information line at 907-772-5788 if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or have questions.
ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
We are now nearly two months past our implementation of Cerner, our new Electronic Medical Record system (EMR) and PMC is gearing up for more change. The next new system coming on board will be Commonwell, a program to allow medical record information to be moved between referral organizations. After that will be a new system called Paylocity – PMC’s new time and attendance system for staff. While change is challenging, these changes are helping PMC improve quality and efficiency and I am so proud of our staff for taking these challenges head on!
HEALTH & SAFETY FAIR
Planning is underway for the 2022 Health and Safety Fair, themed “Getting Back on Track.” Blood draws for the community will be held April 26th-28th, May 3rd-5th, 10th-12th and 17th-19th and the in-person health fair is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, June 18th.
SEARHC PRESENTATION
The PMC Board of Directors has invited SEARHC to present at the regularly scheduled Board Meeting on Thursday, March 24th at 6:00pm. The community is invited to listen in and get involved in the conversation about the future of healthcare in Petersburg. A Zoom invitation will be available to community members interested in attending.
— Phil Hofstetter, CEO, PMC
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CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
COVID-19 airport testing contract expires: PMC will continue providing testing
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The borough's contract with the State of Alaska to provide funding for COVID-19 travel testing expired at the beginning of February. But, for now, the Petersburg Medical Center plans to continue free testing for travelers arriving to Petersburg.
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▲ Paul Bowen was among the CAPABLE program's first group of participants.
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HEALTH & WELLNESS
Program helps keep elders CAPABLE of aging in place
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CAPABLE is a participant-driven program offering basic education, assistive devices and home modifications. The only qualification is the person needs to be 60 or older and have a desire to maintain their quality of life. Walker says, the program could even benefit an older person with a solid support system already in place, like a daughter or son checking on them regularly.
Paul Bowen recently sat down with CAPABLE coordinator Julie Walker for an interview about his experience as one of the first group of participants in the program.
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MEET THE STAFF
Materials Manager Melva's journey from from the Philipinnes to PFI to PMC
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Melva Randrup was born and raised in the Philippines, in a large city about an hour away from Manila. Her first sight of Petersburg was the same as most people who fly in for the first time: where’s the airport?
Melva traveled to Petersburg in July of 1995 for a visit, something she never had planned. Not just a trip to Alaska, but to the United States at all. After receiving an Associates in Fisheries in the Philippines, Melva traveled overseas for work in places like the United Arab Emirates and Cypress. She was on a visit home to the Philippines before taking a new job in Bahrain when she met her husband, Jeff, and the rest, as they say, is history.
They met on December 10th, 1994, while he and a friend were there as tourists. Their trip almost hadn’t happened, the original plan had been to go to Germany. After the two of them met, Jeff convinced her to visit Alaska, so in 1995 she went. Their plan had been to visit each other back and forth for a while but that changed when they got married on September 24th, 1995. They’ve been married now for 26 years and their family includes three children and six grandchildren.
Petersburg was difficult for Melva to get used to, especially having come from such a large city and to a climate much, much colder than she was accustomed to. Her first year was tough and other factors like the culture difference, daylight changes, and the time difference with the Philippines made it even harder. It took two years for Petersburg to grow on Melva but after that, she realized she loved it here.
When she first arrived, Melva started working at Icicle Seafoods, before it became OBI. She started in the processing department but quickly moved up to a supervisor position before becoming the Quality Assurance Supervisor for the whole facility. Apart from QA duties, Melva was in direct contact with buyers, including overseas buyers from places like Japan and Germany. Melva worked at Icicle/OBI for 22 years before starting with PMC as the Materials Assistant in 2017. The position was challenging and fun and gave her a lot of opportunity to interact with people.
When the previous manager left in 2019, Melva applied for and was hired as the Materials Manager. That position has come with its own unique challenges such as trying to make sure the hospital gets the supplies they need in a timely manner. Island living makes that difficult on its own and COVID hasn’t made things any easier. One thing that has come out of the difficulty in supply chain issues is that Melva has created many strong relationships with managers from other hospitals. For her first six months as manager, Melva had no assistant and was doing everything on her own. Now though, she has Nicole and Laura and said that she is glad to have them.
Melva doesn’t spend all her time in the warehouse at PMC, she has several hobbies that get her out to enjoy Petersburg. She loves to go camping, fishing, and hiking as well as having gatherings at her house (when she can) for barbecues, karaoke, or just hanging out around their fire pit. Melva and Jeff are also in the process of building a house in the Philippines for their (very) future retirement!
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▲ Melva and her husband, Jeff, when they first met in 1994.
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▲ Melva and Jeff have three kids (pictured behind them left to right): Melu Jane (the oldest, married with 2 boys), Mark Anthony (the second, married with 4 kids-one boy), and Jeremey (the youngest).
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▲ Melva twinning blouses with her mom on Mothers' Day.
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◄ Jeff and Melva and all six grandkids, while visiting Talkeetna several years ago
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▲Residents have safely enjoyed many of their favorite activities this month, including baking treats with staff, enjoying their favorite board games and bundling up to soak in some blue sky on crisp February days.
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LONG TERM CARE UPDATE
Celebrating all month long in Long Term Care
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February has been a month full of celebrations. To start the month off, our Long-Term Care residents enjoyed food and activities to help ring in the Lunar New Year. In order to bring good luck to all of our residents, staff and residents alike dressed in red—a symbol of luck, joy, and happiness. As the month has progressed, our residents have had the opportunity to enjoy Super Bowl Sunday, and Valentine’s Day. For the Super Bowl, the activities team and our residents worked together to create a plethora of appetizers to enjoy.
Despite the uptake in COVID cases within the community, our Long-Term Care residents have continued to safely enjoy some of their favorite activities. As the sun has peeked out throughout the month, staff has bundled up residents to get outside and see the sunshine. Although we all are predicting more snow in the future, every second of this glorious spring weather is being enjoyed. Our residents have also spent lots of time this month assisting with cooking and baking, filling Long-Term Care with delicious scents. As the activities department continues to help residents achieve their cooking and baking desires, our Long-Term Care setting is combating these dark February days with good smells, social opportunities, and favorite traditions.
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DEPARTMENT SPOTLIGHT
Dietary Cares for People Through Food
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For PMC’s Dietary Department, their days are all about food. Their shifts start bright and early at five am and, though it’s not typical, Dietary staff can sometimes work until seven in the evening. Like other departments they have felt the staffing shortage crunch,but Dietary Manager Lidia Wickersham has nothing but praise for her staff, giving them glowing compliments for all of their hard work over the past few months.
Lidia took over as manager in January of 2021, bringing change with her. One of those changes is expanding on special holiday meals, implementing them for more holidays. Along with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, Dietary most recently served a Valentines’ Day dinner, complete with beautifully crafted vegetable flowers.
Change has also come with recent new additions to the Dietary staff. Glad of their expertise and what they each bring to the kitchen, Lidia shared how glad she was to have cooks with different ways of thinking in the kitchen and the addition of new ways of cooking. For Dietary, this is essential as they aren’t just there to cook meals. Residents and patients often require strict diets and can run anywhere from low sodium diets to puree diets for those that may have difficulty swallowing. Each resident has a color-coded folder that details the particulars of their meals and Lidia emphasized how important and aware they all have to be to ensure that those diets are strictly followed. While Dietary does ensure that the resident’s and patients get specific meals, they also work closely with LTC Activities and the Acute Care staff who occasionally will provide treats or favorite snacks, should a resident make a request.
Recently, the staff have had a chance to step into roles that the normally would not have taken on. A loss in Lidia’s family took her out of state and the staff stepped up while she was out. Lidia highlighted the particular efforts of Brandon Wagemaker, the department’s veteran cook who took charge and helped keep things running smoothly. A temporary staff member from Nome, Pat Owens, also made a tremendous contribution to the department. Pat first came in October and stayed into December to fill in due to hiring difficulties. Then during Lidia's absence Pat returned, putting in countless hours covering different positions. Her hard work made all the difference to the dietary team. Lidia said how grateful and proud she was of all of the Dietary staff.
Lidia has plans to keep the Dietary Department growing. Apart from continuing to expand the crew, she is working on updating menus, bringing back the steam table, and giving the cooks more room to use their skills in the kitchen. “We learn from each other and I think we’re doing really well,” Lidia said, ending on a high note of positivity.
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▲ Veggie flowers added an extra special touch to resident's Valentines' Day meal.
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▲ The Staff of the Dietary Department: (pictured left to right) Max Craske, Chris Mercullo, Lidia Wickersham, Cheryl Morin, and Juan Herrera, (not pictured) Brandon Wagemaker, McKay Jones and Sean Short.
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