With the census climbing at the Erlanger Health System, hospital officials are scrambling to find available hospital beds.
Rob Brooks, chief operating officer, said 12 rooms were opened up at Erlanger North in Red Bank. He said some of those are utilized for main campus patients who may actually be ready to go home but still have a Medicare-required three-day stay. He said the freed-up space is used for more seriously ill patients.
Mr. Brooks said the hospital has been finding hospital rooms that had been put to other uses and re-converting them for patient care.
"We have been looking at closets, sleeping rooms and offices," he said.
Five of those on the fifth floor were repainted and shifted back to patient rooms by hospital maintenance personnel last week. The turnover took only three days.
Another three rooms have been identified for make-overs.
Mr. Brooks advised that the re-occupied rooms "are filling up fast."
He said, "We may need to take a look at a new patient tower."
Kevin Spiegel, president and CEO, said physician visits at Erlanger "are up dramatically."
He said many of those patients are scheduling visits using the ZocDoc web application. He said 100 such appointments were set last week.
Patients can go to the site, find when a physician has an opening, and pencil themselves in.
Dr. Spiegel said the search for a new Erlanger chief medical officer has come down to two finalists. He said both are outstanding candidates, but a selection will be made soon.
He said Dr. Joseph Cofer is heading up the new quality care department and is working in association with longtime physician Dr. Woods Blake.
He said they will be given new offices and an administrative assistant.
Dr. Cofer said he has begun conferring with both patients and nurses to find out their needs.
He said he has focused on one hospital wing and hopes to have it as an example to other wings on what upgrades can be made within eight months.
Dr. Cofer said one thing nurses told him was they would like to reserve from 5:30 to 6 p.m. each day for working with patients, and not have any other patients arrive. That has been worked out.
He said the nurses also asked that they be allowed to stay with their patients and not make runs down to the emergency department. He said that was also agreed.
Dr. Cofer said he has been paying visits to patients who have complaints about their care. He said they seem pleased to have "a white coat" listening to their concerns.
Erlanger officials also said that the shift to contracting with Aramark to handle food/nutrition and environmental services at the hospital has not worked out.
The move was made in November 2013.
Erlanger is changing to the local Sodexo firm.
Employees will remain except for Aramark managers.
Erlanger board members said they plan to discuss bonuses for Erlanger top management in September - earlier than last year's December.
It was noted that one reason for the delay last year was there was no November board meeting.
The board is also carrying out an online review of the performance of Mr. Spiegel.