The Lebanon Democrat
WILSON COUNTY, Tenn. — Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital president Scott McCarver presented a collection of updates about the hospital and its facilities during Monday night’s county commission meeting.
“Since acquisition, our volumes at the hospital have grown significantly, and along with that volume growth, our employees have grown significantly as well, bringing more jobs to Wilson County,” McCarver said.
The number of people employed at Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital has grown to more than 800, with more than 400 physicians on staff.
Vanderbilt acquired Tennova Healthcare-Lebanon in 2019. Since that time, the 245-bed, acute care facility has had more than 7,400 admissions, more than 6,000 surgeries, more than 78,000 outpatient visits and delivered nearly 700 babies.
“Since acquisition, we have made significant investments in the hospital to make sure that we’re bringing more and more services to the people of Wilson County,” McCarver said. “First, we installed Epic, which is our electronic medical record. It allows patients to get seamless care across thousands of hospitals in the country.”
Other capital investments that have been made in the hospital include bringing the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center to Wilson County.
“As a part of that, we installed a linear accelerator,” McCarver said. “At that time, we were only the fourth hospital in the country to have the Ethos linear accelerator. This has revolutionized the way that cancer patients are getting treatment in radiation. This Ethos scanner is now the standard across the country. Many hospitals either have already installed it or are in the process of installing it, but we were one of the first.”
Major accomplishments include an intensive care unit expansion, becoming a level III trauma center, restarting interventional cardiology.
“We have a very unique unit called the epilepsy monitoring unit,” McCarver said. “This where folks who are having seizures, and they haven’t been able to diagnose what’s causing them, can come in. They’re admitted for a full week, and we hook them up to all this stuff. We monitor them 24 hours a day, and about 90% of them leave the hospital understanding what’s causing those seizures. That’s life-changing for these patients.”
Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital also announced on Monday that it has a new collaboration with the Mt. Juliet Fire Department.
“We’ll be providing medical direction for their EMS service, so that’s a really exciting new advancement,” McCarver said.
Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital also received a Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade. There are more than 2600 hospitals graded by the non-profit on an A through F scale.
“We started working with Leapfrog right after acquisition, so four years ago,” McCarver said. “I’m going to tell you ... those first grades were not pretty. We got Ds in our first grades, but that gave us a road map because Leapfrog gives you all the areas where you’re missing the grade, and our entire team has been focused on getting that grade. I’m really proud to say that this fall, for the first time, Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital is now a grade A.”
Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital also received additional recognition from Leapfrog and was named top general hospital.
“I hope we all know and are thankful for the hospital that we have in Wilson County ,” Wilson County Mayor Randall Hutto said. “Not every county has a hospital, and we have one that’s been recognized across the United States .”
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