The Dr. John Warner Hospital, about mid-year, entered into an agreement with the Wipfli group on updating the hospital's strategic plan.

The updating of their strategic plan will provide a road map for their decision making in the near and long terms. CEO of the Dr. John Warner Hospital, Early Sheehy explains there are a lot of things to consider with the update. He explains the hospital has to analyze the future of critical access hospitals. Sheehy also says because the facility is aging, there are a lot of upgrades that will need to be made inside it.

[audio:101912djwhupdate1.mp3] [/audio]

This Saturday, the DJWH Board of Directors along with hospital administrators will work with Wipfli in the beginning stages of developing this plan. Board President, Randy Workman expects this meeting to be more of a brainstorming session.

[audio:101912djwhupdate2.mp3] [/audio]

Of the most important issues to Workman, he feels surgery needs to be readdressed. When the Board updated their strategic plan five years ago, they added a surgeon, but could not support one because of the lack of volume. Overall, Workman feels the updating of this plan is going to be very important though because of many, many changes over the past five years.

[audio:101912djwhupdate3.mp3] [/audio]

Workman explains this is a big part of the plan, but this is just the beginning. Workman says Wipfli has been working with hospital administrators over the past few months gathering information. Workman says this will be the Board of Directors first step in hearing what Wipfli has come up with and talking about those results.

The Board will meet for five hours this Saturday morning at the hospital.