A Message to the Community
As you are likely aware, we celebrated our 100-year anniversary in 2019. We enjoyed multiple gatherings with our community to acknowledge the remarkable history of South County Health in delivering exceptional quality, service, and innovation.
Though there is much to be proud of in our history, we acknowledged with our Board of Trustees that our current trends in financial performance were unsustainable—changes would be necessary to achieve organizational sustainability for the next 100 years. We developed a comprehensive strategic plan that emphasized the development of service lines, digital transformation, improved access, and a continued focus on value-based and community health. We also agreed on a vision to be “A Model Health System,” comparing ourselves to other high-performing health systems across benchmarks for quality, patient experience, and financial performance to ensure we continued to deliver on our mission to be Rhode Island’s “Most Trusted Health Partner.”
In the first few months of 2020, we began the significant work of executing against our new strategy and creating a strong foundation on which to move forward. Then came March 1, 2020—the day Rhode Island confirmed its first two cases of COVID-19. We had been monitoring the situation and working closely with our colleagues across Rhode Island, but as with the rest of the nation, our world was profoundly impacted virtually overnight.
During the remainder of 2020 and into 2021, our organization has worked tirelessly to rise to the challenge of ably serving our community. As always, our physicians, nurses, therapists, social workers, lab personnel, infection prevention team, environmental services workers, food services workers, volunteers, board members, and senior management have put the needs of our patients first.
We are so grateful for the exceptional compassion, quality, and unwavering dedication that our frontline caregivers have given, and continues to give, to our community. We want to personally thank them for their many sacrifices—the long hours, the emotional weight, the extended shifts, and the relentless attention to caring for our community. We can confidently say that we have lived our mission through this pandemic and are a resource that is to be cherished.
We would also like to thank our community for its ongoing support. You have made signs, sent cards, posted on social media, sent food, brought coffee, and cared for our caregivers in many ways. Please know how meaningful and appreciated this support has been to our organization as we continue to weather this storm.