MEDIA RELEASE

Hilo Medical Center’s Pediatric Clinic recognizes that children’s well-being involves a healthy body and a love for reading.

In June 2012, the clinic joined the Reach Out and Read Program, a nationwide program consisting of more than 4,946 participating doctor’s offices that are preparing America’s youngest children to succeed in school.

“We believe the portion of time dedicated to promoting the benefits of reading during patient visits is time well spent for both the families and doctors,” said Boyd Murayama, HMC Assistant Hospital Administrator and Medical Group Practice Director.

The clinic doctors, Tamara Todd and Rick Penland, and their staff have made encouraging reading and giving out books a routine part of regular checkups for their youngest patients.

“We are very pleased to be able to incorporate the Reach Out and Read program into our pediatric care,” Todd said. “The importance of reading aloud to children is something we discuss with every parent during well child visits to the clinic. Along with providing books, we encourage parents and caregivers to read to their young children. Teaching children to love books from an early age stimulates their language and cognitive skills, and helps improve their school-readiness. Reading sets children up for a better future.”

Since June 2012, HMC’s Pediatric clinic has given away more than 1,000 developmentally-appropriate books to children from 6 months to 5 years old. The Clinic’s effort to advance the literacy of Hilo area keiki is part of Reach Out and Read, a nationwide effort that seeks to prepare America’s youngest children to succeed in school.

“The goal of this program is to help children enter kindergarten with larger vocabularies and stronger language skills, and be better prepared to achieve their potential,” Penland said.

Children keep the books they receive from the clinic and may have 10 books by the time they start kindergarten.

Todd and Penland introduce a new book at the beginning of the child’s visit and often use it to assess developmental milestones and demonstrate to parents how to interest the child in a book.

Todd emphasizes the importance of this by recalling one mother who said her 6-month old had lots of books at home but she never read to him because he chewed on the board books.

“Introducing a book gave me the opportunity to talk about the fact that this is a normal developmental milestone in terms of learning about books,” she said.

“I loved reading from an early age and still do,” Todd said. “It’s one of my favorite things to do. I love to take 6 or 8 books on vacation and just read, read, read. I used to go to bed early and stay up late reading from the time I was in middle school all the way through high school,” she says, recalling her favorites were the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

According to Reach Out and Read, research shows that literacy-promoting interventions by medical providers who care for children have a significant effect on parental behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes toward reading aloud.

For more than a decade, studies have indicated that parents who get books and literacy counseling from their doctors and nurses are more likely to read to their young children, read to them more often, and provide more books in the home.

In addition, children served by Reach Out and Read enter kindergarten with a six-month developmental edge, and have larger vocabularies and stronger language skills.

As the Big Island’s leading provider of inpatient and outpatient care, Hilo Medical Center delivers a full range of services and programs. The 20-acre campus consists of 276 beds located throughout the 142-bed acute hospital, 20-bed behavioral health facility and 112-bed long-term care facility. It has more than 975 employees and more than 250 physicians, representing 33 specialties.

As a medical center, it has a network of ten outpatient clinics offering primary and specialty care. The hospital’s Level III Trauma Center includes the second busiest emergency room in the state, providing 24-hour care and serving more than 41,000 patients annually.

HMC is the recipient of Mountain Pacific Quality Health’s Quality Achievement Award for the last two years. It seeks to continually exceed national benchmarks for quality care and customer service.

In 2012, HMC was recognized by the insurer HMSA as Hawaii’s leading hospital in improving quality and reducing the cost of providing care. HMC was also named 2012 Press Ganey Top Improver Award winner for patient satisfaction for improvements made between 2010 and 2011.

It was one of 18 hospitals awarded for this achievement out of 1,418 hospitals nationwide. Most recently in early 2013, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) recognized HMC for achieving Stage 6 on the EMR Adoption ModelSM.

HMC was honored as one of two hospitals in the state and one of 478 hospitals in the United States to reach Stage 6. HMC’s EMR team, HealthConnect, is now moving ahead to achieve Stage 7, the final stage on the EMR Adoption ModelSM.

HMC is part of the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, a public entity established in 1996 by the State of Hawaii to fulfill the promise to provide quality, hometown healthcare.

— Find out more:
www.hmc.hhsc.org