Letter to the Community from New CEO, Emily Dilley

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Emily Dilley, Chief Executive Officer of Kearny County Hospital

A message from our new Chief Executive Officer to our valued patients, team and community:

Hello! I’m Emily Dilley, and I am thrilled to join the Kearny County Hospital family as your new CEO.

I am new to the Lakin community. There were many factors that drew me here, perhaps most of all the community and organization’s strongly rooted values and forward-thinking culture. I saw a team of innovators here who are building a vision for Kearny County Hospital – striving for excellence, finding creative ways to do more, and confident that a model for excellence in rural health exists right here in Kearny County.

The richness and diversity of the community was also part of the draw for me. Diverse perspectives drive innovative thinking. Different experiences, beliefs and perceptions, when brought together, make for the perfect brainstorm of unique ideas and solutions. That is what I experienced when I came here, and I am so happy to now be a part of it.

I saw who you are as a community and what you are poised to become. I saw kindness. I witnessed honesty. I marveled at how genuinely people care about their neighbors and each other. I was touched at how you reached out to make my family feel so welcome. My husband Shawn was equally impressed, and we knew that Kearny County would be a wonderful place to raise our seven-year-old daughter Telynn, and our son Beckett, who is three.

A hospital is so much more than a building and the beds inside. A hospital’s greatness is measured by the caliber of its people.

Great hospitals like this one deserve a committed, engaged, and caring team at all levels of the organization. Leadership, at its core, is based in relationships, an engaged and empowered culture, and good intentions – where we focus on solutions that are best for our patients, team, and community as a whole. It is how we can, not how we can’t.

Keeping the patient at the center of everything we do, every decision we make – that is what makes a hospital thrive. We come together to develop realistic, innovative, fiscally responsible initiatives that meet the needs of our patients, team, and community.

Collectively, with the entire KCH family, we will continue to build on decades of hard work and progress. My model of leadership begins and ends with caring – caring not only for but about each other and having open, honest, and transparent communication with one another. I’ve always said that in rural healthcare, it’s easier to keep people at the center of everything you do because you know them, you have a relationship with them. And it will be my privilege to come to know all of you.

As the new CEO, I will continue building on our strong foundation of caring, excellence, high quality care, and innovation. Great things have been happening at KCH for over 70 years now. Here’s to more great things to come! Thank you for allowing my family to be part of it.

Sincerely,

Emily Dilley, MBA, HSL

Chief Executive Officer

Kearny County Hospital

Click here to read the press release announcing Emily Dilley as Kearny County Hospital CEO

Click here to learn more about Emily

Get to know Emily:

After Defeating a Challenging Case of COVID, Kearny County Hospital Patient Expresses Gratitude for Compassionate, Caring Staff

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“I cannot adequately express the level of gratitude I truly feel for the folks who took care of me. I felt I was respected as a person and as a patient. It was incredible.”

Mark Goudy walked into the Family Health Center at Kearny County Hospital on November 13, 2020, not knowing he would soon be admitted as a COVID-19 patient with a much longer stay than expected.

Although faced with a rapidly progressing case of COVID, Goudy was impressed by the care he received at Kearny County Hospital – so impressed, in fact, that he made a point to share his positive experience with hospital CEO David Hofmeister.

“The level of professionalism, the level of care and concern that I was shown, the compassion and the level of dignity and respect was tremendous,” Goudy said of his time as a patient at Kearny County Hospital. “Whether it was a doctor, a nurse, a CNA or custodial staff – any person that I dealt with during my stay was an excellent example of professionalism in their field.”

Goudy acknowledged that being a patient at any hospital would not always be considered a pleasant experience, but he said of the Kearny County Hospital staff: “In my case, I felt like every possible courtesy was extended to me. It was incredible.”

Kearny County Hospital’s mission-based providers were recently lauded for their high-quality, compassionate care in a patient satisfaction survey distributed on behalf of the Family Health Center. Goudy echoed that feedback – because of his COVID diagnosis, he was separated from his wife for more than two weeks for the first time in 35 years of marriage. During that lonely, isolating experience, he was relieved to be cared for by his attentive care team at Kearny County Hospital.

On November 30, Goudy was taken by air ambulance to the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kan., for the remainder of his clinical treatment. After nearly two weeks there, he was discharged to complete his care with home healthcare services. While he understands the difference in resources that a rural, critical access hospital may have compared with an academic medical center, Goudy admitted his mindset has changed since his stays in both hospitals.

“I think sometimes folks may have the perception that the level of care in a rural hospital – and I’m going to include myself in this category – might not be the same level as an academic medical center. And granted, when you’re dealing with much greater resources, equipment and larger staff, there are some things that can’t be done at the local level.

“But everything that could be done for me, within the abilities of the hospital, was, and it was delivered with such a level of respect and concern and care, I can’t even express to you how much that meant to me and helped me through those tough times.”

Watch the full video of Mark sharing his story: