[Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital annual report, 1983]

              The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital
fflth ANNIVERSARY
REPORT TO
THE COMMUNITY
February 1953 News writers were forecasting the end of the Korean conflict.
Harry Truman had just completed his final
term as President of the United States,
Dwight Eisenhower had taken the oath as
the country's new president, and Ronald
Reagan was a successful member of the
booming motion picture industry.
In North Carolina, the State College
basketball team defeated the Carolina
team by a score of 87-66, and Duke won
over South Carolina at 98-68 to secure the
number one position in the Southern
. Conference.
People came from Guilford and other
counties to shop in downtown Greensboro. Sunday dinner was available at the
posh Plantation Supper Club for $1.25 to
$2.00 per adult with special prices for
children, and 1953 Chevrolets were selling for $ 1,895. The Carolina Theatre was
showing the movie The Jazz Singer, starring Danny Thomas and Peggy Lee; and
Mona Freeman, John Derek (Bo wasn't
born yet) and John Barrymore, Jr. were
playing in a movie titled The Thunder-
birds at the South Drive-In Theatre.
Building for the Cerebral Palsy School
was underway in Greensboro, and Dr.
Jean McAlister was named Woman of the
Year by the Greensboro Quota Club.
But the big news in Greensboro was
announced in the February 19, 1953 front
page headline of the Greensboro Record:
"Cone Hospital will Open on February
25" William Rhodes Weaver reported in
the Daily News, Sunday, February 22,
1953, "Plans more than 40 years old will
become a reality Wednesday when the
$ 5,000,000 Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital opens its doors to patients of the
Greensboro area..."
In a 1947 editorial, the High Point Enterprise had predicted that the hospital
was "destined to be the best in the state if
not in the south." The hospital's opening
was truly a significant event for the people
of Guilford and surrounding counties. A
memorial to her deceased husband, The
Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital was the
realization of Bertha Lindau Cone's vision
of excellent and humane health care for
all. And for the past three decades, Moses
Cone Hospital has provided the best of
medical care to a growing population and
an ever expanding service area.
Hospital Progressed with
its Community
As much as we cherish the past, this is
not a report of where we have been. Instead, it is a look at where we are and
where we plan to go from here.
Moses Cone Hospital has grown along
with its progressive community during
the past three decades. We opened in 1953
with 30 patient beds, today we operate
456. In 1953, we had 200 employees; today we are the fifth largest private employer in the city with over 1700
employees. Last year, we'contributed over
$27,000,000 to the community in salaries
and literally millions of dollars more for
the purchase of goods and services.
Our Board of Trustees and executive
staff continuously work to ensure that our
patients are provided the highest quality
care at the lowest possible cost. Skillful
long-range planning has created an institution that combines the best traits of both
a community hospital and a regional medical center.
Our professional staff provides concerned patient care of the highest order
that goes above and beyond knowledge
and proficiency in technical skills. Our
primary nursing, concept is a family
oriented and personalized patient care
plan which often extends beyond a patient's hospital stay. Support persons in a
variety of specialties are always available
to treat and counsel patients and their
families.
The list of procedures performed regularly at The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital is a catalog of modern miracles. We
provide state-of-the-art care for cancer,
diabetes, heart disease, high risk maternal
care and care for psychiatric disorders.
Procedures such as total joint replacement, coronary bypass, corneal transplants and hundreds of others are done on
a regular basis.
We operate two CT (computerized tomography) scanners to help diagnose illnesses without surgery. We have
developed the city's most sophisticated
laboratory providing services for not only
our own patients, but to over 120 private
physicians as well.
We have just initiated this community's
first use of LASERS for neurological, eye,
ear, nose, throat and gynecological surgical procedures. This modern tool will
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shorten operating time, speed recovery
and significantly reduce the cost of a surgical operation to the patient.
An active day surgery program is an important part of our facility. This program,
recognized as one of the first in North
Carolina, allows patients to have surgery
and go home the same day. It helps avoid
an overnight stay and reduces the cost of
medical care.
We are a regional maternal-child care
facility providing special maternal and infant care to a three county area. We provide free childbirth classes to expectant
families. We are one often newborn intensive care nurseries in the state. This, combined with our active prenatal care
program for expectant mothers, has
helped reduce the infant mortality rate in
North Carolina by 25 percent since 1977.
The hospital serves as an Area Health
Education Center (AHEC). This program
provides continuing medical education to
physicians and health care professionals
in a six county area. The program is designed to help encourage physicians to
locate in areas that are medically unde-
rserved. As a result of this program, hundreds of rural areas now have adequate
health care.
Building for the Future
Last year, we diagnosed and treated
over 80,000 people. Over 16,000 were
admitted as inpatients and the balance
were treated as outpatients. With that
many people depending on you, you can
never stop moving ahead. That's why
we're expanding our 456 bed hospital
with the construction of 151,000 square
feet of additional space. After that, we will
renovate the older sections of the hospital
to create a totally modern patient care
facility. Altogether, it is the kind of foundation necessary to ensure the best future
health care for this community.
A hospital never stands still. It must
either move forward or it will be left behind. Today, thiry years after we admitted
our first patient, we are moving forward,
meeting the new challenges and opportunities of the future. Our goal is simply to
deliver the best possible health care for
the people of our community.
Though our goal may sound simple, our
story is complex. It is told hundreds of
times each day in the skilled and loving
care given our patients. The following is
only a small part of that story. E3