Message from the Superintendent (August 13, 2007)

"If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need." - Elbert Hubbard

I just want to keep you all updated on our continued work with MEDITECH and moving this hospital toward a fully functional Electronic Medical Record. As most of you already know, staff from central office and RPC successfully implemented the Billing piece of MEDITECH a few months ago and are now generating record levels of 3rd party funding. Last week, I let everyone know that we brought on-line both of our clinics into MEDITECH; the clinic here in the hospital and the clinic in Portland. This week, we have just implemented the MEDITECH-Automated Risk Management System, several weeks sooner than anyone anticipated. Ray Laliberty entered his first record yesterday. Both BJ Sylvester -the Director, and Ray will be primarily responsible for this ongoing effort and a big thanks goes to them , the hospital MIS staff-Ron, Beth, Randy, Chuck and Toni, for their work on this, and Jamie for his overall management of this process. Ahead of schedule and under budget are words we don't hear enough in state government but for Riverview and MEDITECH.....we/you-are doing a great job. We are now beginning to work on bringing on the Pharmacy more to come but in the meantime, “thanks”.

A little late, but want to chime in on the Peer Support Week we celebrated last week. Peer support is a vital aspect of Riverview’s Service array. It is a service that not only supports out clients but our staff and the entire treatment milieu.
Every once in a while I Google Riverview, this weekend I found this, “Smoking privileges have become a volatile issue at Augusta Mental Health Institute, where violence flared up recently after patients demanded more opportunities to smoke. Four AMHI employees went to a hospital after being injured May 4 in a scuffle that they said was triggered by a forensic patient's demand to smoke more and be left alone while smoking”.

I also found this, “Lawyers for patients at Riverview Psychiatric Center are challenging a court-mandated smoking ban on the grounds that their clients are too messed up to have to quit smoking on top of everything else.”
I find the above interesting in contemplating what Riverview has accomplished in becoming a tobacco free care environment. Clinical outcome measures do not demonstrate an adverse effect from the ban. Staff have done a fantastic job at supporting clients in transitioning to a healthier care environment. Many persons started this transformation with predictions that persons with mental illness would not be able to “handle” being in a smoke free environment. One lawyer warned, “You may come to regret this”. Well I, for one, have come to take pride in the fine staff at Riverview who have been able to support and care for those we serve while providing them a cleaner and safer care environment. Persons served here will take with them the knowledge that they can live smoke free. That is a gift many never have been given before. Some will use that gift to make life style changes which will improve their lives.

I wanted to share part of an article I recently read titled, The Health Promotion of People with Psychiatric Disabilities by Dori S. Hutchinson and Alexis Henry (4/2006) “ … we seek to stimulate not only dialogue about the critical health issues of persons with psychiatric disabilities, but caring actions that translate into caring policies, programs, and practices that promote the health, not the illness of people who live with psychiatric disabilities. People who live with psychiatric disabilities have a right to a healthy life, a right to thrive and not just survive, and we have a responsibility to address these issues”.

For all your good work, as always, Thank you.

David S. Proffitt

"You may promise yourself every thing-but health, without which there is no happiness. An attention to health then should take place of every other object." - Thomas Jefferson

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Message from the Superintendent (August 13, 2007)