IN THIS ISSUE
Thankful
THANKFUL TO ALL OF NANTUCKET
BY MARGOT HARTMANN, MD, PhD
President & CEO 

Nantucket Cottage Hospital has much to be grateful for in this season of Thanksgiving. First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the community for its support of the hospital over the last 103 years, to our dedicated staff and volunteers, more than 600 of them, who work tirelessly to serve the health needs of Nantucket, to our donors and our patients who put their faith in us. Thank you!

 

The hospital once again is on the cusp of needed change; our current facility was designed five decades ago during the Eisenhower Administration with a medical model no longer in use and one that cannot serve or sustain the needs of Nantucketers. We are weighing various options, we are listening to the community, and we pledge to continue to listen, building a consensus for moving forward with a new hospital to serve Nantucket for generations to come.

 

Along the way, there have been many successes of which we are proud, as a result of a strategic plan coming out of the Great Recession of 2009-2010 when the hospital faced a perfect storm of declining volume, lower reimbursements and a failing building. The growth we have experienced over the past four years has been remarkable and is truly an island success story. Among these successes, we have:

 

  • Upgraded the existing physical plant where appropriate: The need for a new building is clear, but we have found a balance that has allowed us to highlight shortcomings of the existing building, while improving and maintaining it as a safe and welcoming place to receive medical care.
  • Increased full-time physician staff: Chief among our many goals is providing more services here on-island, and that means assembling the finest medical staff possible for a small rural hospital. Over the past two years we have added Dr. Jock Lawrason, our chief medical officer and hospitalist physician, and Dr. Heidi Larson, who opened a family practice in June. That brings the total number of on-island staff physicians to 10 across all NCH departments - a number we hope will continue to grow.
  • MD ACKcess Phone Line: A major accomplishment that has gone largely unheralded is that our MD ACKcess phone line, which connects patients with a primary care physician, now has no waiting list for the first time since it was created in 2012. And our new Walk-In Care service, a pilot program that opened during the summer of 2014 for the treatment of non-life-threatening ailments, was a huge success, with more than 1,500 patients served in just two months.
  • Increased visiting specialty physicians: We have made great strides in connecting islanders to care and creating greater access to medical expertise on-island. Nantucket Cottage Hospital now has 29 specialty physicians who regularly visit the island practicing 24 sub-specialties, including neurology, dermatology, podiatry, endocrinology and pediatrics. The community has responded to this increase in services, as indicated by a nearly 450 percent increase in the number of specialty clinic visits over the past four years.
  • Expanded Pediatric Clinics: We listened to the community's desire for more pediatric services and created a partnership with Briarpatch Pediatrics of Cape Cod that brings board certified pediatricians Dr. Leif Norenberg and Dr. Richard Bloom to the island.
  • Upgraded Technology with new MRI, X-Ray equipment: An upgraded MRI unit arrived in April and now provides island residents with higher quality scans, faster service, and a number of new capabilities that allow more patients to have diagnostic imaging completed right here on Nantucket, including gastro-intestinal imaging for conditions such as Crohn's disease.

 

All rural hospitals today face tremendous challenges in the delivery of health care; Nantucket is no exception. A recent USA Today report, entitled "Rural Hospital In Critical Condition," notes that rural hospitals are closing across this nation at an alarming rate. The closings threaten to decimate, the paper reports, a network of rural hospitals the federal government created in the late 1940s to insure that no one would be without health care. "The stand-alone, community hospital is going the way of the dinosaur," says Angela Mattie, chairwoman of the health care management and organizational leadership department at Connecticut's Quinnipac University.

 

And so Nantucket Cottage Hospital is also thankful for its affiliation with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Partners HealthCare, which has helped greatly to sustain quality care on Nantucket and seen us through some challenging times in the not too distant past. At this time of Thanksgiving, Nantucket Cottage Hospital looks to a brighter future and even greater blessings.

  
Giving
GIVING TUESDAY 
PLEASE CONSIDER A DONATION
With Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday all in the rearview, today marks Giving Tuesday, a national day of giving back that is dedicated to raising funds and awareness for important causes, charities and institutions. 

While we are looking ahead to 2015, we also reflect back on the last 11 months with deep gratitude to the island community for its generosity to Nantucket Cottage Hospital, and a sense of pride in our accomplishments in serving as Nantucket's health and wellness leader. 

As we embark on the annual fundraising appeal for the NCH Fund to sustain the hospital's operations and forge ahead with the capital campaign to build a new hospital for future generations of islanders, we hope you consider supporting Nantucket Cottage Hospital on #GivingTuesday




For more information about #GivingTuesday, click here
Hackett
MAUREEN HACKETT NAMED 'NORTH AMERICA'S OUTSTANDING PHILANTHROPIST' 
CHAIRWOMAN OF NCH FOUNDATION RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS HONOR
Maureen Hackett, President and Chair of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital Foundation and a member of the hospital's Board of Trustees, has been named the 2014 Outstanding Philanthropist by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP).

"Women have long been leaders 'often unsung leaders' in philanthropy. Today, women's philanthropy is more visible, more prolific and more powerful than ever before. Our understanding of it must equal its strength in order to achieve philanthropy's full potential to change the world." - Maureen Hackett 

Inspired by her mother, Maureen Hackett has given personally - and through the Hackett Family Foundation - more than $22 million to more than two dozen organizations around the world. 
  • Helped establish the first-ever Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and created the first-ever endowed chair in Women's Philanthropy in the U.S.
     
  • Funded a Mental Health Channel, which will be the first web-based channel devoted to mental health programming delivered via the web, commercial free, 24 hours a day, and led a successful movement to see Congress approve legislation extending mental health benefits.
     
  • Endowed the first chair in Reproductive Psychiatry, recognizing the inextricable link between reproduction and mental health, and provided a significant gift for the children's behavioral health department at Legacy Health Center. 
DidYouKnow

DID YOU KNOW ... 

Volunteers
VOLUNTEERS RECOGNIZED FOR DEDICATION 
SUPPORTING CANCER CARE ON NANTUCKET  

Swim Across America Nantucket's co-directors Jim Pignato and Jill Roethke were honored with the Volunteer of the Year Award by the Philanthropy Partners of the Cape and Islands. 

 

In its 18th year, Philanthropy Day on Cape Cod celebrates philanthropy and gives local nonprofit employees, board members, and volunteers an opportunity to share and learn from one another.

 

The Volunteer of the Year Award is given to individuals demonstrating exceptional leadership skills and outstanding philanthropic commitment through fundraising efforts and/or coordinating community involvement to benefit Cape Cod and the Islands. 


Pignato and Roethke have been co-directors of Swim Across America Nantucket for the past two years. After being involved with the 25th anniversary swim put on by the national organization, Jim and Jill felt inspired to make this an annual event on Nantucket. Together, they have helped to raise over $400,000
 to support cancer treatment programs and patient care at Nantucket Cottage Hospital and Palliative and Supportive Care of Nantucket. 

Photo: Barbara Clarke


Charlene Thurston, RN, ANP, Program Director at PASCON and Dr. Margot Hartmann, President and CEO of Nantucket Cottage Hospital, thank Jill and Jim for their hard work and dedication in the video below. 

 

 

Tree
NewsBriefs
NEWS BRIEFS
  • TAKE A TOUR: See first-hand why it's time to build a new health care facility for the island. Join our staff every Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. for a tour of our building. You'll get a look into how the hospital currently operates, visit patient rooms and see our equipment. This is also a chance to ask questions about the old building, and what a new facility will mean for our patients. Call the Nantucket Cottage Hospital Foundation at 508-825-8250 to reserve a spot in our next tour.   
  • SUPPORT THE NCH FUND: The NCH Fund provides the annual support our island hospital needs to advance the health and wellbeing of all Nantucketers. Click here to donate or mail checks to 57 Prospect Street, payable to Nantucket Cottage Hospital.   
  • WHY WE NEED A NEW HOSPITAL: Do you have questions about why we need a new hospital on Nantucket? Visit nantuckethospital.org/newbuilding to learn why a new health care facility will benefit the community. 

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This newsletter is produced by the Nantucket Cottage Hospital Foundation 
57 Prospect Street  |  Nantucket, MA 02554  | 508-825-8250