KING CITY — Mee Memorial Healthcare System (MMHS) recently announced that Emergency Department Medical Director Dr. Noah Hawthorne has been awarded the Vituity Brilliance in Leadership Award for 2023.
The prestigious award recognizes Vituity leaders who exemplify exceptional leadership and devoted service to the partnership and clinicians in their day-to-day practice.
Hawthorne’s leadership initiatives include refocusing on basics, such as optimizing equipment, training and procedures for trauma, pediatric and OB emergencies, among others.
“Metrics have dramatically improved over the last three years, with substantial improvements in overall length of stay, time to see the doctor, left without being seen and clinical metrics like sepsis performance,” according to MMHS, which operates Mee Memorial Hospital and several clinics in King City, as well as the Albert and Donna Oliveira Clinic in Greenfield.
In addition to improving basics of emergency care, the hospital’s Emergency Department has focused on staying on the forefront of best practices, including a robust point-of-care emergency ultrasound program and a strong integrated program for helping patients with substance disorders.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, a remote Virtual Front Door program was implemented, allowing telehealth visits with the emergency physician at Mee.
With the end of the pandemic and evolving regulations surrounding telehealth visits, the program is pivoting and undergoing a technical makeover to allow preregistration in the Emergency Department and also enable future patients to interact with an AI to describe their symptoms.
“This will allow better patient triage on arrival and integrate with in-person data such as vitals, labs and physician examination to aid doctors with prompts for rare or life-threatening diagnoses,” stated MMHS.
