Some dialysis service was resumed this week at Good Shepherd Medical Center, which had suspended it June 19, hospital officials said.

The hospital is working in partnership with the Longview locations of DaVita, a national company providing dialysis and other services. The Denver company is set to assume all of the hospital's dialysis operations July 11.

Steve Altmiller, president and CEO of Good Shepherd Health System, said the hospital made the decision to halt dialysis service after a recent review by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

"During the course of their survey, areas for improvement were identified within our hemodialysis unit," he said. "We temporarily halted dialysis services to take action to address those items."

The decision, Altmiller said, was not related to any concern over staph infection "or any other infectious organism."

The unit shutdown affected only patients at the center who needed dialysis in addition to other care, as Good Shepherd doesn't provide outpatient dialysis services. It required some emergency and heart cases to be diverted to other hospitals until dialysis returned to Good Shepherd.

Other area hospitals were contacted soon after notice of the shutdown. Seven patients were transferred to Good Shepherd Medical Center in Marshall, Longview Regional Medical Center and East Texas Medical Center.

Altmiller said the transfer of all seven patients requiring dialysis "occurred safely and without incident."

"Four of those seven patients chose to be transferred to Good Shepherd Medical Center in Marshall. (GSMC-Marshall) is not full and remains open to patients seeking care," he said. "The pediatric and cardiology units have been and remain open."

Stephanie Foster, chief nursing officer at Longview Regional, confirmed the facility had seen an increase of dialysis patients, and "every person needing this type of care has received it in a timely manner."

"We have a long established relationship with DaVita dialysis services," she said. "They have been very accommodating in helping us take care of this increased patient load."

In his weekly "Message from the CEO" issued Friday to hospital staff and others, Altmiller said after DaVita began services, the hospital would be "completely off diversion related to dialysis."

He also said that he couldn't speculate on the final outcome of the centers' recent survey, but called it eye opening.

"We have some of the best clinical outcomes in Texas, and in the nation," he wrote. "However; we still have areas to improve in." Most of those, Altmiller said, were in areas such as tracking building repairs, monitoring of trends and reporting.

"This day-to-day, nuts and bolts focus was our weak spot," he wrote. "They have not impacted our clinical outcomes and we can never let that happen."

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