YCH hosts Hospital Luncheon

The Yoakum Community Hospital (YCH) invited prominent members of Lavaca County and hosted a luncheon. They discussed the state of the hospital.

“Last year, the YCH interacted with 22,000 members in our community,” YCH CEO Tiffany Hintze said.

“That was either in the form of a test, a procedure, an emergency room visit, or a visit with our family medicine physician. That is a pretty staggering number. That was the demand side. Looking at the supply side of it, we pulled some information on our labor. Last year, we incurred a little over $16 million in our payroll.”

The YCH is one of the top 10 critical access hospitals in the nation.

“This means that we deliver exceptional care and are second to none,” Hintze said. “Bigger is not always better. Without our staff, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do every single day. Yoakum is unique in that we have a very large service area. We pull from Lavaca and DeWitt County. We also pull from Victoria, Gonzales and even Fayette County.”

In fiscal year of 2024, the YCH had roughly 15,000 outpatient procedures. On the ER side, they had almost 7,000.

“We’re on track to exceed that number this year,” Hintze said.

The YCH also employs 245 jobs. “We have a comprehensive panel of services at YCH,” Hintze said.

At the luncheon , Hintze talked about what areas the YCH wants to grow.

“Some of the areas we talked about today include our health and primary care, our cardiopulmonary rehab services, rebranding our rehabilitation, and focusing on our behavioral health and how we will grow that and meet the needs of our community,” Hintze said.

YCH also wants to grow their physical therapy and occupational therapy. Another thing YCH is excited about is improving the quality of service for their radiology group.

An area of excitement for the hospital is the recruitment of another family medicine provider.

“Dr. Tracy Birdsong-Surrell will be joining us in September,” Hintze said. “She started out in general surgery and then realized the general surgery life was not for her. So, she pivoted and joined John Peter Smith Hospital. They are one of the topranked family medicine programs in the United States. Starting out her first year, she will be doing surgery one day a week and then family medicine three days a week. She has completed close to 1,000 surgical procedures. We are very excited for her to be joining us.

The YCH continues to show excellence in care and aims to provide the best service possible.

For questions or for more information about the services YCH offers, call 361-293-2321