Melissa Memorial Hospital puts SHIP funds to good use!

The SHIP Grant Program makes funds available through the Office of Rural Health Policy to assist small rural hospitals that are essential health access points for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. The program assists small rural hospitals with projects that focus on quality improvement, performance improvement and patient safety - as well as other projects such as using technology to improve patient outcomes. 

The Colorado Rural Health Center (CRHC) is proud to help recognize one of our SHIP grant recipients, Melissa Memorial Hospital ( MMH) located in Phillips county,- for putting these funds towards quality improvement in the hospital and the impact it will have on their local community. Thru a long-standing partnership between the CRHC and Beth Katzenberg, Director, for the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care (CFMC), the hospital was able to utilize Beth's extensive expertise in quality improvement to conduct a quality systems assessment, funded through CRHC's FLEX grant. Along with the quality system analysis, Beth also reviewed the balanced scorecard and the board quality committee. A process mapping session funded through CRHC's SHIP grant was also performed with a group of hospital employees to look at steps of vital hospital processes. A report will now be generated that will be received and reviewed. MMH administrator John Ayoub noted this is something the hospital wasn't required to do but felt it was important enough to spend the grant money on. They are now aware of the areas for improvement within their system and look forward to implementing new processes that will impact the quality of care given in Phillips county.



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