CALLICOON — The Callicoon campus of Garnet Health Medical Center - Catskills has a new Nursing Director, Eva Edwards, who is leading the charge on further developing the hospital’s swing beds program. 

According to Jerry Dunlavey, CEO of Garnet Catskills, the hospital participated in a grant through the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), and one of the things that the grant focused on was improving access to care. 

Dunlavey said that the total funding awarded to the Grover Hermann (Callicoon) site by the NYSDOH was $1,149,000 for the Swing Bed and Inpatient Bed Access Project. He also said the grant is a Department of Health Vital Access Provider/Safety Net Award.

“So when we looked at the Harris campus and the Callicoon Campus and identified opportunities to improve access to care,” said Dunlavey, “I thought the swing bed program was an ideal candidate.”

Dunlavey said that it is important to understand some of the recent history of the swing bed program and said that during the pandemic, there was an effort made to consolidate all of their patient care to the Harris campus because of the challenges that arose related to staffing and adjusting to the reality of the pandemic. 

Ahmed was at the Callicoon campus at that time and spoke on what led to the downsizing which included the swing bed program. 

“It was staffing-related,” said Ahmed. “There was a great exodus around that time and I believe it was in 2021 that a lot of people left the profession and their jobs.” 

Ahmed said that the Callicoon campus in particular had a lot of vacancies, and they didn’t have enough people working there or across the system to have all the patients there. 

“It was born of necessity, that during that timeframe we downsized our footprint in the inpatient arena so that we could manage and run the facility safely,” she said. “Now we’re kind of back in the reverse.”

Ahmed said that they now have their full complement of staffing at their disposal and the grant has given them a great opportunity. 

“We have this great opportunity, with this grant, to help improve access and a swing bed program in a community such as ours is an extremely wonderful opportunity,” said Ahmed. “For our community to be able to get into those beds when they need that transition after acute care, but before going home.”

She said it helps them get that extra bit of rehab that they couldn’t get somewhere else or at home.

“They may benefit from a longer course of antibiotics or some wound care,” Ahmed continued. “It’s sort of a bridge to going home.”

The Chief Nursing Officer said that the important thing about the swing bed program is getting the word out and being able to work with people so that they understand the nuances of a swing bed program in a critical access hospital. 

Dunlavey said that they currently have a 15-bed capacity for the swing bed program at the Callicoon campus, but that there could be growth to a higher number. He said that if they can grow closer to the higher numbers of the census, there are dollars in the grant that would kick in to support additional nurses and nurse technicians. 

“Our number one goal is to meet the needs and demands of our community,” Dunlavey said. “So if that’s five patients a day, seven patients a day or even 10 patients a day, we want to be able to meet that need. I think the grant will help us get there.”

He also said that if a patient is in an acute care hospital, they will likely get less time with the therapist than they would be able to get in a swing bed program. 

“It’s been my experience for many years that our public reporting is off the charts,” said Ahmed. “Our quality measures are second to none and our patient satisfaction rates over the years have been outstanding. So making sure everybody knows [the swing bed program] is here and how to access that vital service. A lot of people will end up going for subacute rehab in a nursing room setting and maybe not realize that this hospital has a swing bed program.”

She said that adding the aforementioned staff members will help get the message out and let the community know about the service right in their backyard. 

“So what we expect is with this case manager, the nurse director and our care of nursing staff here today,” said Dunlavey,” is that the program can really start to build and get back off the ground to where we were pre-pandemic.”