Welcome to ZZ Sumter Regional Hospital

Update – Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Posted 11/21/2007
Please note that much of the information contained in this update does not represent a final determination, and could very likely change in the coming days or weeks.  It is the intent of this communication to be a good-faith effort to keep you apprised as to general information so that you can stay ahead of rumors and speculation.  Please do not take any of this content as a guarantee of what will be happening in either the short-term or long-term, and be patient and understanding as things may change.

Win an MRI
As of Tuesday evening, we had approximately 127,550 votes and it is   increasing steadily.  Our lead over Lockport NY (the second-place hospital) stands at just over 61,000 votes with 42 days to go.  Over the past week, we've averaged about 3,300 votes per day.  If we continue that pace, Lockport would have to average almost 4,750 votes per day to catch us, and the highest number of votes they've received in any single day since we started tracking is 2,654 one day three weeks ago.  Keep voting at www.winanmri.com every day from work and at home, especially over the Thanksgiving holidays, and that MRI should be ours in another month and a half!  That would allow us to take the $800,000 to $1.5 million that we would have spent on an MRI and use it for some other critical phase of our recovery.

P.S. If you are having trouble remembering, please make www.winanmri.com your homepage, which will ensure it will come up every time you turn on your computer and access the Internet.

Win an MRI Allegations
We've picked up, from scanning the local online newspapers from other cities in the MRI contest, that some folks think we've pushed the rules a bit to our advantage.  Particularly, they think that we have used video footage that we did not create, but that appeared on local news stations or on Dateline NBC, and for which we do not have copyrights.  The truth is that every frame of the “Blown Away” video was taken by our employees and no outside help was used in any way in the creation or editing of the video.  Prior to filming and creating the video scenes, we asked Siemens, the contest sponsors, for a clarification of two points in the rules that we thought were a bit vague, and they gave us their expressed, written permission to do everything in our video that we did.

SRH East Construction
The interior of the hospital looks drastically different today than it looked even a week ago.  The shower units are in place in almost all of the patient rooms, and about two-thirds of the back half of the building has already been sheet rocked, working from east (CCU) towards the west, including Radiology, Lab, Labor and Delivery, and parts of the Inpatient Rehab gym and rooms.  Additionally, areas of the southeastern corner, which will house the ER, have been sheet rocked.  Outside, they are building the ramps that provide entrance to the building, and are working on the addition between ER and OPSU that will house Central Sterile.  It is really amazing to walk through and see the beehive of activity as people are walking around on stilts putting up sheetrock mud and cutting new pieces of sheetrock to fit.

Patient Counts
The Urgent Care facility had a slightly lighter week than normal last week by seeing 400 patients.  Outpatient Services saw 633 patients, and the Oncology Clinic saw 136 folks.  When you add in the 47 patients seen by Rehab, we saw 1,216 people in all this past week.  That is our 19th consecutive week with over 1,000 patients, and was our 4th highest week of the 37 weeks since the tornado.  We've seen over 38,000 people in all since the blue tents opened on March 5.

Lunch and Learn
This month's program is titled “How to Talk to Your Doctor”, and will give practical advice for developing and maintaining the lines of communication with your doctor and other healthcare providers.  The program will be held in the Devotions Room of the Rylander Building , which is Habitat for Humanity's headquarters, from Noon until 1PM on Tuesday 11/27.  Bring your lunch and join us!  There is no fee for this class and registration is not required.

Love Lights Tree
The annual Lighting of the Love Lights Tree is scheduled for Tuesday 12/4 at 6:30 pm.  The lighting will take place at the SRH East/Urgent Care area, and refreshments will be served.  Santa will be on hand, and the SRH Kids will perform a play about a special gift for this community.  Everyone is invited to attend.

Again, please understand that this communication is intended to be a rough update and is not intended to be a final determination of short-term or long-term plans.  Also, please be flexible, as things do change frequently and oftentimes with little warning.

US Patent Numbers 7,720,998 B2, 7,836,207