LJWorld.com

Kansas University Hospital admitted more patients and spent more money in the year ending June 30 than it has in its history.

The numbers were released in an audit of the 2009 fiscal year distributed at KU Hospital Authority’s board meeting Tuesday. The audit showed a 12 percent increase in operating revenue to $750 million, which includes receipts from patient care, physician services and other miscellaneous revenues.

Scott Glasrud, the hospital’s chief financial officer, said he attributed the increase to a focus on service, quality and people.

“The 2009 performance was very strong,” Glasrud said, adding that they had projected a slower 2010 fiscal year, but had rethought that in recent months.

“Given the first-quarter performance, we’re going to be upping that,” Glasrud said, but the figure would still be below the 2009 levels.

The hospital spent $54 million on capital expenses in the 2009 fiscal year, which ended in June. That included new patient units, a new linear accelerator in radiation oncology and a new electronic medical records system.

The hospital reported ending the fiscal year in the 90th percentile of all hospitals in patient satisfaction.

Those figures had slumped somewhat in the months following the end of the fiscal year in June, something hospital officials attributed to a change in meal vendors and a high number of patients.

Physician and nursing satisfaction scores remained high, said Tammy Peterman, the hospital’s chief operating officer.

“We’re doing a remarkable job in getting them in and taking care of them, yet people are waiting from time to time,” Peterman said.

The satisfaction scores had dipped to the 77th percentile in August, after a sustained period of high scores near the 90th percentile, but have rebounded since.

Hospital officials said they were working with the new meal vendor, Aramark, to iron out some issues, including delays in providing meals to patients, and that progress had been made.

In other news reported at the board meeting:

• The hospital gave out all 3,600 doses of its seasonal flu vaccine at a drive-through event held Oct. 31. Hospital officials reported high interest and long lines at the clinic, and said it was the first time they had given out all of their available doses of the vaccine in recent memory.

• The board received an update from Mark Keroack, chief medical officer of University HealthSystem Consortium, in closed session. Keroack said he came at the invitation of the CEO, and discussed the hospital’s high rankings in the recent UHC lists of quality and safety for academic medical centers.

Hospitals that performed well on the report typically had strong leadership, a commitment to patient care and, as was particularly the case at KU, he said, a good focus on external measurements of quality.