Yellow RibbonOur Core Values
It is the mission of River Hospital to provide compassionate, cost effective and accessible primary health care to the year round and seasonal residents, and visitors of the River Communities. The hospital prides itself on high quality outpatient, inpatient and specialty services to meet individual and community needs through partnerships with our patients and communities we serve.
Find Out MoreOur Support Groups
Click on the names of these wonderful groups below for more information.
home
We are located along the shores of the St. Lawrence River with magnificent views of the St. Lawrence Seaway shipping channel and Boldt Castle.
Accessible by boat and car, we pride ourselves on delivering high quality inpatient care, emergency services and outpatient services for routine and diagnostic testing. River Community Clinic offers a variety of primary care services, on premise, for the entire family. Our Ambulatory Surgical Unit offers same day surgery on an outpatient basis for a number of specialties.
We invite you to learn more about the variety of services we offer .
news
River Hospital Foundation and River Hospital Offices Moving to New Location
River Hospital Foundation and some River Hospital offices are relocating to 3 James Street, downtown Alex Bay beginning this week. The Foundation Office is scheduled to move from the current Route 12 location to the newly renovated space once occupied by CP Roman’s Night Club on Friday of this week, January 27th. The Post Office Box 567 mailing address, as well as telephone and fax numbers will remain the same.
Patient Billing and Finance offices currently located at Route 12 are scheduled to move next week, Monday January 30thto the 3 James Street location. The administrative offices currently located adjacent to the hospital are scheduled to be relocating to 3 James Street during the week of February 6th. The mailing address and telephone numbers for hospital staff will remain unchanged.
The relocation of offices will bring the hospital, Primary Care Clinic and Foundation staff closer together and will make additional on-campus space for new clinical services. “Because Critical Access Hospitals must retain all clinical services on the same campus, this makes the most business sense to relocate the non-clinical services and administration offices” says Ben Moore, River Hospital CEO. Recent additions to the growing list of health care offerings include Cardiology and Gynecology specialists. New services are already under serious consideration for the office space which will soon be vacated by the administration. The growth of our outpatient volume is critical to our plans to stabilize the financial condition of the institution in these challenging times for health care facilities.
A complete renovation of the 5,580 square foot ground floor will make an easy access for the public on the James Street side of the building. The hospital has entered into a 10 year lease agreement with Empire Management.
Posted on Monday, January 23, 2012
River Community Clinic Receives Recognition from Tobacco Cessation Center
On Thursday, January 5th, 2012 The Tobacco Cessation Center of Northern New York (TCC of NNY) recognized River Community Clinic for their diligent efforts over the past several years in the treatment of tobacco dependence. River Community Clinic has achieved the highest level of partnership with the TCC of NNY and was recognized for their efforts with a plaque presented to them by the TCC’s Joel Schuyler, CTTS (Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist). The Tobacco Cessation Center originally worked with the Clinic in 2007 to assist them in the implementation of the US Public Health Service Guidelines for tobacco dependence treatment. The Clinical Practice guidelines are the Standard of Care in tobacco cessation treatment in health care settings and River Community Clinic was among the first in their area to implement them. The Clinic Nurse Manager, Chris Jewett, who together with the staff and providers Dr. Aaron Huizenga, Dr. Mahreen Razzaq, Jeniffer Alberry, FNPC and Cynthia Simpson, FNPC, has continued to provide excellent tobacco cessation services to the community. Since tobacco is the single greatest preventable cause of death and disability, these efforts are critical to the community’s overall health.
The Tobacco Cessation Center of NNY is one of nineteen cessation centers statewide and covers the tri-county area to assist healthcare providers to aid their tobacco dependent patients through training, assistance and implementation of the Clinical Practice Guidelines. This is just one of several critical programs which comprise the state of the art New York State Tobacco Control Program. For more information on how to quit or to schedule an appointment at River Community Clinic call 315-482-2094.
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Photo: Presentation of Plaque
Left back: Judy Hunter-Eves (Respiratory Therapist), Chris Jewett (RN & Clinic Nurse Manager), Dr. Aaron Huizenga (DO), Wendy Morrison (LPN), Billie Jo Bowes, Karen Denner, Marcia Graves (LPN), Robin Whitcomb(LPN) Dr. Mahreen Razzaq (MD)
Front left: Theresa Vinson, Cynthia Simpson (FNP-C), Jeniffer Alberry (FNP-C), Joel Schuyler (Tobacco Cessation Center of NNY)
Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2012
River Community Clinic Achieves Certification as a Patient Centered Medical Home
River Community Clinic, in partnership with the Fort Drum Regional Health Planning Organization, are pleased to announce we have attained certification as a Patient Centered Medical Home level 3, the highest level of this important new health care model. Scoring 91.25 out of a possible 100 points, among the highest across the North Country Health Information Partnership (N-CHIP) project, this certification puts our small, rural practice at the forefront of the evolution of health care in the country. Patient Centered Medical Homes must meet a variety of nationally-recognized quality standards, including:
- Written standards for patient access and enhanced communications
- Appropriate use of charting tools to track patients and organize clinical information
- Responsive care management techniques with an emphasis on preventive care
- Adaptation to patient’s cultural and linguistic needs
- Use of information technology for prescriptions and care management
- Use of evidence-based guidelines to treat chronic conditions
- Systematic tracking of referrals and test results
- Measurement and reporting of clinical and service performance
This certification is awarded for three years through the National Committee for Quality Assurance (www.NCQA.org).
In the Patient Centered Medical Home model, the patient’s primary care doctor acts as the central hub, or home, for everything going on with that patient. The primary care doctor can find out quickly and efficiently if the patient is admitted to a hospital and can get in touch for follow-up care. Specialists and doctors are linked so test results go right back to the primary care office. The model aims to use the latest advances in information technology to restore some of the values of old-fashioned small-town medicine – knowing your patient better, coordinating their total care – back into modern medical practice.
“PCMH standards really stress involving a lot of different people – physicians, nurses, specialists, social workers – and that also includes the patients. It does expect the patient to take some responsibility for their care as well: what they’re doing at home, whether they’re complying with their medications, whether they’re following up with specialists’ appointments. And it does that by involving them with the discussion in the first place, so they have a better idea of the whole process, the progress of their disease and why we’re doing what we’re doing,” says Dr. Aaron Huizenga, medical director of River Community Clinic.
Being certified at level 3 as a Patient Centered Medical Home means River Community Clinic meets the highest standards of health care coordination under this cutting-edge health care model. We have implemented a system to get patient feedback about their visits, and already as a result of that feedback are reserving space for same-day appointments to provide better access to our patients. We are using electronic medical records and are the only Critical Access Hospital tied into the new regional health information exchange, named HealtheConnections, which allows electronic patient histories to be shared online across health care providers with patient consent.
“The health information exchange is really going to make the retrieval of information much better,” says Dr. Huizenga. “Because of our location and a lot of the specialists in Watertown and Syracuse, our access to all that information is going to be so much better. And going the other way, they will be able to access information from us as well. It will make things significantly more seamless and much more complete so everyone’s getting a much better picture of what’s going on with a patient."
River Hospital hosts specialists who come from outside the hospital, and they, too, will be able to access the health information exchange during their time practicing at River.
River Community Clinic decided to pursue Patient Centered Medical Home certification in part because of some of the chronic health issues we see among our patients. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, hypertension and asthma are the top four diagnoses at our clinic. With chronic conditions especially, better coordinating patient care and improving patient education can go a long way toward preventing relapses and repeat inpatient hospital stays, and widening the time between acute episodes of illness.
Because the clinic is a part of River Hospital, the same clinicians care for patients through the clinic as well as at the hospital during inpatient stays. That means River Hospital patients, too, benefit from these improvements to care.
Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2011
