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Hanford Insider: Adventist Health Transforms Hanford's Medical Landscape

• Rob Bentley

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What does world-class healthcare look like when it's right in your backyard? Tim Haydock, Operations Executive at Adventist Health Central California, joins us to reveal how specialized medical care has quietly transformed in Kings County.

Did you know that of the four hospitals with "A" safety ratings in our entire region, three belong to Adventist Health? Or that surgeons in Hanford are performing specialized procedures only available at a handful of other facilities across California? From robotics-assisted surgeries with faster recovery times to the advanced treatment of complex conditions like endometriosis, the healthcare landscape in Hanford has evolved dramatically.

We explore how this health system serves over 5,000 gastroenterology patients annually, operates the only electrophysiology program in Kings or Tulare counties, and has invested millions in expanding specialized care. The conversation takes us through new facilities, cutting-edge technology, and plans for a $40 million expansion that will create a world-class cardiac center with five catheterization labs right here in Hanford.

Beyond the clinical advances, Tim shares how Adventist Health's 7,500 team members across Central California are united by a mission to provide excellent care close to home. Their network of over 20 local clinics, 30+ specialty services, and physician training programs are creating a sustainable healthcare ecosystem that keeps patients from having to travel far for treatment.

Whether you're new to the area or a longtime resident, this conversation will change how you think about healthcare in our community. Subscribe now and discover the medical excellence that might be just minutes from your front door.

You can find the Hanford Insider at www.hanfordinsider.com and on social media at @hanfordinsider
Thank you for supporting the show!

Speaker 1:

On this episode of the Hanford Insider, Tim Haydock joins us to give an inside look at Adventist Healthcare in Hanford, and Rob will give us an update of the Hanford City Council actions as well as a quick look at the community calendar.

Speaker 2:

This is the Hanford Insider, the podcast, where we dive into what makes our community tick, from local stories and hidden gems to conversations with people shaped in our neighborhood. We're here to celebrate, explore and connect. I'm your host, rob Bentley. Whether you're new to Hanford or a longtime local, this is your source for everything happening in our town, from events and news to conversations with people who make Hanford such a unique community. I hope you enjoy the format. Let's take a look at this week's community news. Congratulations to all of our recent graduates. It was fun to see the drone shows over Neighbor Bowl for the high school graduations and all of the yard decorations around town. I want to wish all the students, and especially their teachers, a great summer. Saturday was a great day for Hanford. The Carnegie Car Show and the Civic Centennial events were awesome. It was so great to see so many people come to town for these special events. I'll be posting highlight videos later this week after I've had a chance to catch my breath.

Speaker 2:

The Hanford City Council met last Tuesday evening. Here are a few highlights the city has received numerous complaints about traffic safety on Centennial Drive from Lacey Boulevard to Grangeville Boulevard, and they're now supporting a grant that would address issues such as a crosswalk near Sierra Pacific High School and other traffic safety measures. There was also significant interest in the new master fee schedule and how it affects places such as the Longfield Center, the softball complex and youth athletic complex. The new fee schedule was adopted. However, they'll still continue to negotiate use fees with leagues that use the baseball complex. Finally, the council adopted the two-year budget through 2027. The next city council meeting is Tuesday, june 17th. The next City Council meeting is Tuesday, june 17th. Let's take a look at this week's community calendar. At this week's Thursday Night Marketplace it's Dairy Appreciation Night with the band Run for Cover. They'll be providing dance music up until the end.

Speaker 2:

Amford Parks and Community Services is kicking off their free summer movies in our local parks. The first event will be held on Friday, june 13th at the Civic Park. The movie will be Kung Fu Panda 4. This is the last week of the Kings Players production of Eat your Heart Out at the Temple Theater. For more information about the production, including times and tickets, visit kingsplayersorg.

Speaker 2:

The Yosemite Renaissance Art Show is opening up at the King's Art Center this weekend. Visit kingsartcenterorg for details. The Hanford Juneteenth Celebration will be held Saturday, june 14th at Copark from 11 am to 5 pm and the King's Fair is coming up on June 19th through the 22nd. Visit thekingsfaircom for information about this year's events. If you have an event coming up and you'd like some help getting the word out, let's work together. Send your information to hanfordinsider at gmailcom. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a complete calendar of events. It's the most comprehensive community calendar available With us today we have Tim Haddock, who is the operations executive at Adventist Health Central California.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the show, tim. Hey Rob, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Hey Tim, we know that Adventist Health has made some huge investments in healthcare in the Valley and especially in Kings County. We see all these hospitals and clinics spread throughout town, but we may not understand how fortunate we are to have top-level health care here, right in our backyards. So what makes Adventist Health Hanford such a great option for serious health care emergencies?

Speaker 3:

Well for emergencies. First of all, we have top-notch physicians and medical providers in our emergency department. We have a wide array of specialists on call to provide consultations and procedures where necessary Things like cardiology, urology, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, foot and ankle surgery, many others. So we have just an excellent team that is there to take on anything that the community needs at any point in time. We are designated as a primary stroke center, so through the American Heart Association, we're designated as a gold plus center of excellence for stroke care.

Speaker 3:

So time really matters in those events, and so we want people to go to the closest hospital possible that provides excellent care and you're not going to get any better care than you are in Hanford. For that we also have an accreditation as a geriatric emergency department, which just signifies our ability to provide the highest quality of care for some of the older members of our community. And then we have just an amazing gastroenterology program. We provide advanced care. An amazing gastroenterology program. We provide advanced care. We have procedures that we're able to offer that. There are only a handful of physicians across the entire state of California that are trained and skilled.

Speaker 2:

So I know when the industry awards are important, it kind of gives you a chance to show the community that you are doing great things, and I know that Adventist Health has taken a lot of awards and recognitions lately. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely yeah. So there's an organization called the Leapfrog Group and they're a leading organization across the country that grades hospitals in their ability to provide safe, effective care. And our hospital in Hanford is an A-graded hospital, which is the highest grade you can get. We have between Kings, fresno and Tulare counties there are only four hospitals that are A-graded. We're very proud that three of them are at Venice Health Hospitals, in Hanford, in Tulare and in Selma. We have just a rabid focus on quality, safety and patient experience and it's central to everything that we do. I talked about our Gold Plus Stroke Distinction. We have as well what's called a Blue Distinction Plus through Blue Cross, blue Shield of California. That's recognized for facilities. In our case it's for hip and knee replacement surgery. So we're top notch in terms of clinical outcomes for those surgeries. And then we have an advanced certification for inpatient diabetes care by the Joint Commission, which is the largest accrediting body that sets the standard for safe, high quality care. And then we also have called MBSA-QIP, which is an accreditation for high level bariatric surgery program.

Speaker 2:

I know over the years that people didn't necessarily have access to high quality health care. You know, you hear about them always having to go out of town to all these special clinics and those types of treatment centers, and now Adventist Health offers quite a bit of specialized care. Can you tell us about some of your specialty areas?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. We launched our robotic surgery program back in June of 2023. And so we are now with faster recovery, better clinical outcomes than non-robotic procedures. So that has really just been a boom for us here in the community to enable us to recruit physicians in that otherwise we wouldn't have had an opportunity to bring to the Valley that were trained on robotics. Nowadays, when surgeons are coming out of school, most of all of them are trained in robotic surgery. So it's an absolute must. It's not a part of the future, it's a part of the present, and we're really excited about how well our program has taken off.

Speaker 3:

Here in Hanford we also have an advanced GYN program. We have an advanced GYN surgeon who specializes in surgical treatment of endometriosis, and that's something that really doesn't exist anywhere else across all of Central California. So we're really excited, really fortunate, that our community members have that program. In our own backyard we have an advanced GI program. I spoke about it a little earlier, but not only do we have a robust gastroenterology program that provides the general services, but we have the advanced program that just allows for patients to have a broader array of care in that arena and again conducting procedures in our hospital in Hanford that are only conducted in a handful of hospitals across the state of California. Bariatric surgery program we talked about high level, very advanced program we have. A lot of those procedures are done robotically nowadays, so that's a big piece of enabling that robot to be highly productive. And then we have an electrophysiology program the only electrophysiology program in all of either Tulare or Kings County and cardiology services as well, so let's talk a little bit more about that GI program.

Speaker 2:

In talking to several people preparing for this interview, it's crazy how many people deal with digestive issues, and I know that Adventist Health has made a pretty solid investment in GI clinics.

Speaker 3:

Yes, Absolutely yeah. Gastroenterology services are growing in demand every day across this entire country and we've been fortunate to have incredible physicians serving this community both for a long time and also newly recruited physicians that have helped us to develop those advanced programs I talked about a few minutes ago. We serve over 5,000 patients a year with our gastroenterology program here centered in Hanford. We offer a variety of preventative and diagnostic care services that include colonoscopies and endoscopies, and through that it allows us to identify conditions like colorectal cancer, ulcers, crohn's disease and others before they become life-threatening. We just made a $3 million investment to expand gastroenterology services here in Hanford.

Speaker 3:

We have what's called the Kerr Outpatient Center that many community members are probably familiar with, on the campus of our old hospital. It used to be Hanford Community Medical Center. We have four operating rooms over there and we just invested $3 million to equip two of those operating rooms to become GI labs, and so that gave us immediate expansion. That opened. We did a launch of that in the middle of February of this year and we are working right now to make the same investment at our hospital in Tulare, and the new suites have all the bells and whistles, all the latest and greatest equipment. So we're really excited about the continued expansion of those service offerings and the successful recruitment that we've seen over the last couple of years as we grow that team. It's a sorely needed service. Many hospitals and communities struggle with having enough skilled professionals to provide that service to them and we're very fortunate to have experienced the growth that we've seen and we plan to continue that rapid accelerated growth here into the future.

Speaker 2:

Well, there's certainly a lot of areas that we could look at. We could probably have a two-hour show if we had time for that, but let's talk about cardiac care. I'm just amazed at the number of treatment facilities there are now and things that can be done in Hanford that don't require people to travel.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we have what's called a cardiac cath lab in Hanford. We also have one in our hospital in Tulare. In that lab today we do things like angiograms, we implant defibrillators and pacemakers, and then we do those electrophysiology studies and ablations that I touched upon a little earlier. And then we also do interventional radiology procedures in those labs. We are currently in the process of getting the state approval to launch our interventional cardiology program, which will allow us to expand upon the procedures that we're able to offer in our facility. And then we are in the early planning stages of a large $40 million expansion of our hospital here in Hanford. That will build us a world-class cardiology center and when that's all said and done we'll have five cardiac cath labs and we'll be able to do all the cutting edge procedures with the latest and greatest technology for the community and for all of Central Valley right here in Hanford.

Speaker 2:

So earlier you mentioned the old community hospital and we know that there are clinics at the old Sacred Heart Hospital and there's these clinics and offices all over the place and some of them are walk-in urgent care, but a lot of them have different services, not necessarily related to immediate care, just lots of different opportunities for service. Can you tell us about some of the clinic services that are offered?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so at Venice Health we're very proud of our integrated structure. So we've been talking a lot about hospitals here to this point. But, yeah, we have the clinics and the hospitals that work as one unit because it's all one care continuum for the patient and for the community. So in Kings County alone we have over 20 different clinic locations and in those locations we obviously offer primary care pediatrics, women's health, dental, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy but we also offer a variety of specialty services over 30 different specialty services in those clinics Things like GI general surgery, orthopedics, spine care, behavioral health, pulmonology, urology, cardiology, endocrinology I can keep going on forever Foot and ankle care A very long list.

Speaker 3:

So pretty much all of the ologies, for the most part, we have right here in our own backyard. So we're really proud of the services that we offer. We accept most insurances, including Medi-Cal. We also work with uninsured patients to ensure that they're receiving the proper care. With uninsured patients to ensure that they're receiving the proper care. We had over the last 12 months in Kings County alone with those clinics, we had 278,000 visits and 237,000 of them were in the city of Hanford.

Speaker 3:

So that's a big piece of our footprint in Adventist Health and also part of our clinics are residency programs where we train medical school graduates who are getting ready to launch their careers as physicians. So we have a family medicine residency program attached to our Hanford Hospital and we have a family medicine program attached to our hospital in Tulare and an internal medicine program as well, and so we bring these young professionals into our facilities. They serve patients along with a supervising physician in our clinics and all across our hospitals and the different services, and they live in our communities. They buy homes here, their children attend school here, homes here, their children attend school here, and our goal is hopefully to embed them into the community, have it become really home for them and hopefully we're able to keep them as physicians and as community members for decades to come after that. So that's an exciting part. And we also have beyond just the hospitals and clinics, we have home care and hospice services. We have an agency right here in Hanford through Adventist Health that serves the community very, very well.

Speaker 2:

So when people talk about the largest employers in Kings County, of course we have corrections, but Adventist Health is right there and all those people need a place to live. So when we're talking about all these new homes and why are people coming to Hanford, adventist Health is a huge piece of that and a part of the community. So, having said that, we know that people say things on social media, and that's one of the reasons why I actually started this podcast, because I felt that people were depending too much on social media for their information and they see things, they read things. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to address something here, and that is what would you like the community to know about Adventist Health that they may not already know?

Speaker 3:

Well, I appreciate that. I would love for the community obviously to know, as a not-for-profit healthcare organization, we exist to care for the community period. We've built a very strong culture in our organization and a key element of that is making sure that everybody always understands why their role matters. We have over 7,500 team members in all of our facilities across Central California and in every one of them we have hundreds of positions. Many of them are taking care of patients directly and the rest of us are helping to support those that are taking care of patients directly, and for us it's just critically important that everybody understands why their role matters. And, at the end of the day, why everyone's role matters is that the community is depending on us to be great, and we can only be great consistently if every single member of our team is great, and so by helping everybody to understand always that their role, no matter what it is they're doing in that moment, is to be excellent for the community of Hanford and all the other communities across Central California that depend on us to be there for them. That, I think, makes us special.

Speaker 3:

We have a top 10%, top decile performance in terms of team member retention across all healthcare in the United States.

Speaker 3:

We're very proud of that and that's an important piece of it is that culture that we've been able to build.

Speaker 3:

You know, our mission statement is living God's love by inspiring health, wholeness and hope, and that's what every single one of those team members does every single day. And ultimately, we want the community to know that excellent health care is provided right here in Hanford and in the other 32 communities across Central California that we have services in and we don't want our community members ever traveling further from home than they have to to get excellent care. And so inevitably, you know, there's this general concept in all of our minds, because health care is confusing to understand that bigger is better. There have been books written about it, et cetera, and research done and that's certainly not the case. So, yes, we are a large organization there are larger organizations everywhere that you'll be able to find but we believe that the best care quality that any of our community members can receive is right here in town and we have kind of the external accolades to help support that kind of the external accolades to help support that.

Speaker 2:

And we just want people to feel comfort in knowing that the best of the best exists right here in Hampton. So I know, as part of that effort, their marketing team makes solid efforts to get the word out to the community about different services that are available. So let's go ahead and plug those websites and social media sites.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so our website is AdventistHealthHanfordorg and then our Facebook is Adventist Health Central California, and those are the two most prominent areas where people can link in and connect with us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Lots of good information. You know it's always nice to be able to see updates on projects and even patient care. Fantastic, hey, Tim. It's been great visiting with you and I thank you for coming on the show and giving us a little insider look into the workings of Adventist Health Hanford.

Speaker 3:

Really appreciate it, rob, and thanks for everything that you do for the community. I love this city very, very much and what you're doing is so important, so thank you.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's all the time we have for this week's show. If you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to show your support, you can go to buymeacoffeecom slash Hanford Insider to make a donation. You can go to buymeacoffeecom slash Hanford Insider to make a donation. If you'd like to join the Hanford Insider email list, stop by my website at hanfordinsidercom to sign up for updates. You'll also get an exclusive copy of my newsletter in your inbox each week. I also need your help getting the word out about the show by liking and sharing on social media or, like most of you, just telling a friend For more information about the show. You can find this podcast on Facebook, instagram, threads X and YouTube at Hanford Insider. If you have a show idea, be sure to email me at hanfordinsider at gmailcom and I'll look into it. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.

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