Health Care crosses many sectors of the public at many different levels with issues that hospitals, clinics, employers and government officials are addressing each day.

On Monday, October 26, State Representative Donna Seidel of Wausau spent the day shadowing Saint Clare’s Hospital President Mary Krueger, getting a first hand health care administrative experience alongside leaders and staff of Ministry Health Care’s newest facility in Weston.

“This was a great opportunity to share some insight into the challenges we are facing along with important insight into the programs and initiatives we are working on at Saint Clare’s,” said Krueger.

During her day at Saint Clare’s Representative Seidel attended the facilities bed management meeting, which is held daily to determine bed placement of admissions, and any staffing challenges due to patient census. She also went on patient rounds with leaders which highlighted Saint Clare’s use of an electronic medical record system for improving patient care and quality. She also attended a monthly emergency services meeting and the regular monthly meeting of Saint Clare’s leaders from all departments of the Hospital.

In those meetings, Representative Seidel heard about core measurement performances, patient satisfaction reports and the impact of projected physician and staff shortages on the local health care system. They also discussed the increasing number of people seeking care without the ability to pay.

“This was an extremely insightful day,” Seidel told the Saint Clare’s combined leadership meeting. “Your leaders and staff have done a lot to shed some additional light on important issues that are on the burning platform of health care that the state legislature will be addressing over the coming weeks and months.”

Representative Seidel will reciprocate the shadowing day early next year when she will host Krueger for a day at the State Capitol.

The newest member of the Ministry Health Care system sponsored by the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, Saint Clare’s Hospital is a 110-bed all-digital provider of quality, compassionate care in central Wisconsin offering a wide range of primary and specialty care.