Increased patient volumes at New Hanover Regional Medical Center are being coped with thanks to the “the teamwork and cooperation of our community medical staff,” hospital president and CEO Jack Barto said in a recent blog posted on the hospital’s website.

“The last few months at New Hanover Regional Medical Center have created a ‘new normal’ in how we think about patient volumes,” Barto wrote in February.

“For the past nine months, and especially in recent weeks, our patient volume set records almost every week. As a normal course of business, we now typically take care of a daily census of more than 600 inpatients – a number unheard of here just a few years ago and one that just 12 months ago would have necessitated some level of crisis management.”

He said that public trust in the hospital system is one reason for the increase in patient volume.

“As our community medical staff has grown more proficient in many specialties, our services have improved. Patients no longer feel the need to leave the area for services such as cardiac, oncology, neurology or pediatrics, and patients in surrounding counties are more likely to choose us for care,” he said.

The hospital’s county market share remains steady at 94 percent, Barto reported.

“Add in a few more factors – an unusually strong flu season (though that hasn’t driven patient volumes as much as you might think), the aging of our population and the overall population growth of this region – and you have ‘problems’ that many hospitals would envy,” he wrote.

NHRMC has responded to the challenge with a variety of tactics.

“We have opened every bed that the space in our 10 floors at the main hospital campus will allow. We have added RNs and other support staff, and continue to hire more as these trends continue.

 “And we have batched patients from the same medical practice on the same floor whenever possible, so physicians from those practices can more easily round on all their patients, help cover for each other, and sign discharge orders for their partners when appropriate,” Barto said.

Partners in the local physician community also play a crucial role in the process, Barto wrote.

“When we first called a ‘Code Lavender,’ which means we have a number of patients waiting for beds, and later a ‘Code Purple’ when our census reached the once-unthinkable 686, our physicians and staff worked together to remove barriers to patients going home,” he said.