by Vickie Jenkins

There is something exciting taking place in Bethany, OK. It is the new opening of Bethany Behavioral Health! “Today is the first day that we’re open to see patients,” says Rob Lake, CEO. “It took a lot of people to make this work and it’s nice to see everything come together so well. This is the old Deaconess Hospital so it has come a long way. The whole place has been renovated and everything is brand new, along with the latest equipment. New business, new facility, new everything,” Lake said.
Bethany Behavioral Health is a 57-bed psychiatric hospital meaning more mental health crisis beds for the Oklahoma City metro. “Of course, as our patients grow in number, our facility will grow also. Our program will help adults over the age of 55 with major mental illness disorders,” Lake states. “We will have in-patient only. There will be a 5-day stay for adults and an 11-day stay for geriatrics. That number will change as we fill to capacity and I know we are going to grow in time. The patient will receive treatment for their individual needs and there will be an assessment before discharging them. We have the highest quality of care here,” Lake adds.
Lake attended school at Texas Tech University, where he got his Bachelors and his Masters. Beginning his career in the medical field in 1987, he spent 20 years as CEO of different hospitals in different states. “This is the 7th hospital that I have been at,” Lake says. “I’ve been at hospitals in Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and several cities in Oklahoma. Traveling to different states gives me the chance to join in on a progressive and innovated opportunity to motivate companies for healthcare. With this being a new healthcare facility, it gave me the chance to hire all new people. Recruiting all new people was fun, yet challenging. Right now, we have 45 employees. We have high quality employees and they were all hand-picked. I am very proud of each one of them. Our main concern here at Bethany Behavior Health is to help the patients with their problems. We will focus on the patients and the quality of medical care as we see them. Right now, we have the chance to make this the best hospital it can be. Everyone needs to work as a team, doing their very best and we can make it happen. I think this is what makes everything run so smoothly,” Lake said.
Some warning signs that could indicate a senior should seek help are: anxiety/agitation, confusion/disorganization, depression, fear/paranoia, fluctuations in weight, hallucinations/delusions, memory loss, mood swings, sleep disturbances, social withdrawal, suicide thoughts and wandering.
“Do you see any challenges that you might face as time goes on?” I ask Lake. “Well, like any new facility, I’m sure we’ll face a few problems but nothing that we can’t handle. I know I have the best employees and I see how well things have gone so far. I look forward to the future and watching how much Bethany Behavioral Health is going to grow. I like my job and I like the way it makes me feel, even if I do face some challenges ahead, I can do it,” Lake commented.
When not working, Lake stays active in many ways. Triathlons, golf, tennis and cycling. “Exercise is very important to me,” says Lake. “My wife is an occupational therapist and she stays active too. We have 2 sons, Cody, 24, and Kyle, 23. Both boys will graduate in May of this year. We are so proud of both of them.” Lake comments.
“Do you have any words of wisdom that you pass along to others?” I ask Lake. “Yes, I do. I always tell my employees to make sure to give 3 smiles a day. 1. Make a patient smile. That is why we are here. 2. Make a physician smile. That is how we get our patients here. 3. Make the staff smile. This is your hospital. Make it what you want it to be; the best!”
Bethany Behavior Health is located at 7600 N.W. 23rd (formerly Deaconess Hospital) Their goal is to increase functioning and improve the quality of life. For any questions, call 844-243-1331 or 405-792-5360.

Most of us have heard the phrase, “Don’t count your chickens until they hatch” or “Don’t put the cart before the horse.”
In Louise Bryant’s world, the saying goes, “Don’t count pecans until you have them in the sack.”
The Bryants’ existing family tree is loaded with pecans.
Louise, 76, husband Carrel, 79, son Randy, 56, and daughter Lisa, 45, make up Bryant Pecan Company of Ada.
“Mother Nature dictates much of whether the pecan crop is good or not,” Louise said. “Rain at the right time is critical. For instance, when nuts are filling out, they need water, but when they are pollinating, they need dry weather. An early freeze in the winter or a late freeze in the spring can also destroy the crop. A few years back we had a freeze on Halloween. It got the crop for that year and also the buds for the next year. Even when the tree is filled with nuts, rain can keep you out of the field from harvest or wildlife can destroy a crop.”
Thus comes the saying, “Don’t count pecans until you have them in the sack.”
Family business
Louise was raised on a Jersey dairy about four miles south of Ada. She witnessed, from early on in life, a family operation.
Their dairy delivered door to door, and occasionally, in the case of her brother Albert, beyond.
“Sometimes, Albert would go into houses and put the milk into the refrigerator for them,” she said.
Louise met Carrel through 4-H Club, but they didn’t start dating until her first year at East Central University in Ada.
In college, they came across each other one night while dragging Main Street. They had a lot in common and shared many of the same values. Carrel and Louise married in 1960 on his parent’s wedding anniversary, April 13.
Carrel grew up northeast of Ada in the Francis and Cedar Grove area, and the family has passed down the story that his father, A.A. Bryant, cut down many of the native pecan trees, “but he kept enough to pay his taxes from pecans each year.”
When they married, Louise and her husband moved to Carrel’s dad’s place and that’s where they continue to live. He and his dad farmed together as long as his dad was able to farm.
“After we got married, my dad gave us a Jersey heifer which we kept until she got sick,” she said.
The Bryants now own about 690 acres with almost 2 miles of river bottom on the South Canadian River. In the early years of their marriage, cattle and hay were their primary products but they still picked up native pecans.
Today, son Randy oversees much of the daily operation, which focuses on pecans and a herd of purebred Horned Hereford and primarily Angus commercial cattle from which they raise black baldies. Daughter Lisa handles the marketing and promotional products of the family business.
“We have always had some pecans,” Louise said. “We started focusing more into the pecan industry in about 1981. A big crop that year changed our focus. We got mechanical harvesters and it looked like a way to increase our farm income.”
Louise said they probably have upwards of 4,000 trees now. In addition to the native pecans, the majority of their trees are improved varieties.
The more you shake this family’s tree, the more you learn just how much each member is involved, such as Louise.
Through the years on the farm, Louise has raked hay, brush hogged, fed and worked cattle and grafted, harvested and cleaned pecans.
“We also have a retail store where we market many of our pecans as well as candy, pecan oil, Amish products and gift items,” she said.
These days, that retail store occupies most of her time. She manages the daily operations of doing the paperwork, ordering supplies, shipping orders and running the retail space.
There have never been lulls in Louise Bryant’s life.
Besides helping on the farm, she taught at Byng Schools for 21 years.
“When I taught, I brought farming to the classroom through Ag in the Classroom,” she said. “For example, I hatched chickens in an incubator for the children to watch.”
She has also taught a Sunday school class, been a 4-H leader and was president of Pontotoc County Home Demonstration Council. Bryant was secretary/treasurer of the Pontotoc County Fair Board for 11 years.
She served nine years on the Farm Service Agency board.
“I followed Carrel on the board, and Randy replaced me,” she said.
Bryant also has served on the Pontotoc County Farm Bureau women’s committee and as a director for the Oklahoma Hereford Women.
From tree to pie pan
“Take 1 1/2 cups of pecans, 1 unbaked pie shell, a 1/2 cup of butter…”
That’s the way Bryant’s recipe for “Mama’s Best Pecan Pie” – the 2014 Oklahoma Pecan Food Show Grand Champion Pie – starts off.
Bryant is not only a pecan producer. She’s a fan from tree to pie pan.
“I find it interesting that pecan trees rarely die of old age. They either die from disease or damage such as lightning, wind, drought or ice,” she said. “I also find it amazing that something as good as pecans can also be so good for you.”
That comment led to the question of, “What makes for a good pecan pie?”
“I’ve never seen very many bad pecan pies,” she said. “A good pecan pie starts with quality pecans. I like for my pecan pies to be firm with lots of pecans.”
October sunshine
Recently while out among the pecan trees, Bryant looked up at some of the weighted branches, bowing with pecans that will soon be harvested. As she did, the October sunshine in Pontotoc County seemed to just reflect off her face, highlighting her smile.
During their 57 years of marriage, Carrel and Louise have both survived cancer and other illnesses, “and feel extremely blessed to still be able to function and help keep the farm operating.”
In addition to the phrase about waiting to count your “pecans until you have them in the sack,” Louise, when facing the challenges of daily life, often reflects on what her grandmother Canzada Newton, often repeated.
“When things get hectic, I think of her saying, ‘a hundred years from now it won’t make any difference anyway,’” Louise said, “and it helps put things in perspective.”

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve realized that hospitals are being scrutinized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services like never before.
Care standards such as core measures are by now commonplace and improving Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores are keeping hospital executives up at night.
But for the first time this year hospitals in America who excelled in these areas were eligible for the coveted CMS five-star rating.
Community Hospital CEO Debbie Kearns, RN, recently learned her hospital received five stars.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Kearns said. “It reflects the hard work and commitment all of our team members have to providing safe, quality care.”
Community joins select company in Oklahoma with only Oklahoma Heart Hospital, McBride Orthopedic Hospital and Oklahoma Surgical Hospital in Tulsa earning five-star status.
“Community Hospital is committed to providing safe, quality care for every patient,” Kearns said. “Our physicians, nurses and other clinicians are committed to continually improve care. We appreciate the trust patients continue to place in our ability to meet the highest standards of care and are pleased that Community Hospital has achieved the top rating of five stars.
“The five-star rating is a direct reflection of the hard work and dedication of our team members and shows their true commitment to providing our patients with the best experience possible.
Our work doesn’t stop with this ranking, instead it serves to reinforce our mission of becoming the premier hospital in the country specializing in surgical care.”
The Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating is designed to help individuals, their family members, and caregivers compare hospitals in an easily understandable way. Over the past decade, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published information about the quality of care across the five different health care settings that most families encounter.
The new Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating summarizes data from existing quality measures publicly reported on Hospital Compare into a single star rating for each hospital, making it easier for consumers to compare hospitals and interpret complex quality information.
The methodology for the new Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating was developed with significant input from a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) and refined after public input.
CMS will continue to analyze the star rating data and consider public feedback to make enhancements to the scoring methodology as needed. The star rating will be updated quarterly, and will incorporate new measures as they are publicly reported on the website as well as remove measures retired from the quality reporting programs.
For Kearns and her hospital, which includes a new campus in North Oklahoma City, the five-star ranking was validation of what she sees every day.
“Our culture in our organization is one of hiring the best staff, the best team and to have the best group of doctors,” Kearns said. “Our goal of being a premier surgical hospital, if you don’t continue to maintain those quality initiatives and focus on the customers you can’t maintain that rating.”
Kearns has been notified that Community will receive the quarterly five-star rating again for the next quarter.
“Every employee has to be committed to providing that five-star experience for our customers,” Kearns said. “We don’t have any opportunities to sit back and provide less than an exceptional experience. When we hire employees we set that expectation and raise that bar really high.”
CMS collects the information on these measures through the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) Program.
Hospitals are only assessed on the measures for which they submit data. Some of the measures used to calculate the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating are based only on data from Medicare beneficiaries and some are based on data from hospitals’ general patient population, regardless of payer.
“Today, we are taking a step forward in our commitment to transparency by releasing the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating,” CMS said in a statement. “We have been posting star ratings for different facilities for a decade and have found that publicly available data drives improvement, better reporting, and more open access to quality information for our Medicare beneficiaries.
“These star rating programs are part of the Administration’s Open Data Initiative which aims to make government data freely available and useful while ensuring privacy, confidentiality, and security.”

by Jason Chandler
Staff Writer

Most of the people don’t ask to be sick or plan a hospital admission. But when there is a health crisis, they find help at OU Medical Center Oklahoma City.
Dedicated nurses serving in the cardiac program, or Cardiovascular Institute at OU Medical Center are part of a continuum of care navigating the hospitals with opportunities.
“Our nurses have the opportunity every day to work in CVT and still have mobility in different areas,” said Scott Coppenbarger, hospital spokesman.
This continuum of care is a high priority for the patients’ experience as nurses are specialized in certain areas.
Examples include the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, step down, in house telemetry, cardiac floor, cardiac rehab, cardiac trauma, cardiac service line management, ability to impact STEMI times and outcomes, cath lab, adult congenital program, thoracic program, perioperative services, and the heart, lung and valve clinic.
Corinna Reed, RN, has been a nurse for 21 years. She works in the cath lab where diagnostic and interventional procedures are performed.
“For blockages in the heart, we stop heart attacks. We put pacemakers in and help eliminate blood clots,” Reed said. “There’s so many procedures we do. It’s becoming more and more encompassing.”
She said some procedures have been transferred from surgery to the cath lab setting where it is less evasive. Patients can be in and out of the cath lab in an afternoon versus surgery where they may stay overnight. So comprehensive care is becoming much easier for patients and families, Reed explained.
All of the cath lab nurses are critical care nurses. Reed has always circled back to focusing on the heart.
“I like to see people walk out of here,” Reed said. “One of my biggest rewards when I recovered open hearts was getting to take the ventilator off, and then the next day walking them down the hall to the cardiac nursing floor.”
A few days later, Reed would watch her patients wave goodbye as they were wheeled out of the hospital.
During Shawn Penington’s nine years at OU Medical Center he has worked in intensive care and cardiac intensive care units. The RN currently serves patients in the cath lab. OU Medical Center has been good to him by providing vital experience.
Patients who have had open heart surgeries will sometimes come to the cath lab for stents. The RN is familiar with all the medications they take.
“Some of those people come in. They are not scared. Some of them have a lot of anxiety,” he said. “So I like to identify with those kind of people.”
Understanding their emotions by acknowledging they are scared helps to ease their mind.
“Usually I tell them I would be scared, too, ‘if I was where you’re at,’” Penington said. “Even though I know there’s good outcomes of what we do and nothing’s going to go wrong I would still be afraid myself. That’s usually where I can meet them on level ground to help calm their fear.”
Nurses are attracted to cardiovascular ICU care because of the complexity of the work, said Bertha Nunez, RN, nurse manager for cardiovascular intensive care. It’s the hard work, she added.
“The critical thinking aspect, the busyness, because if your heart’s not working right then other things won’t work right either,” Nunez said. “And you have to have the anatomy, physiology knowledge behind it. Know your medications and how it impacts one organ and the rest of the body as well.”
Some nurses have been in different roles with OU Medical Center for more than 20 years, she said. There are also younger nurses the hospital works hard to keep on staff.
Nunez commends the nursing staff for their dedication, she said. They take the extra effort to help patients feel better, she said.
They also incorporate the family and feel gratified that for the 12 hours of work, they made a difference in a patient’s condition.
“That’s what attracted me to nursing was the ability to help somebody who may be anxious like Shawn said, or somebody that doesn’t know what’s going on and taking the time to explain,” Nunez said.
Teamwork and support through all aspects of the organization makes OU Medical Center’s stellar reputation thrive.
Ashley Milam, RN, works in the cardiothoracic ICU. She aids in heart recovery after open heart surgery and other dealings with the lungs and esophagus.
“We get them after surgery. They see us after the procedure is done and throughout their stay in the recovery process,” Nunez said.
Patients going to the hospital are trusting their lives with someone else.
“I admire their fight and their drive,” she continued. “And how they can be in an area that is very scary and they remain calm a lot of times. I admire they put so much trust in us.”
The staff remains updated with the flow of state-of-the-art technology be means of a computer system, said Chandra Ross, RN, manager of the cardiovascular progressive care floor unit.
“To update we use evidence based practice articles,” Ross said. We have a couple nurses that do that often, pull that up for us and spread it through the units.”
Information is shared during huddles and weekly updates.
“I was always drawn to the seriousness of different heart diseases,” Ross said. “I’ve loved every aspect of it from the floor nurse, supervisor and now the manager,” she said.
Nurses stick with cardiac nursing because of its energy and complexity of different procedures, Ross said.
“They get to see a whole variety of things because how the heart impacts stroke, vascularization and different things. They love new challenges,” Ross said.