In an era of mega health care conglomerates, huge hospital campuses and nationwide insurance providers, is there room for something smaller? Elise Fornadley, Allenmore Hospital’s new administrator, thinks so. The relatively small size of the 79-year-old Tacoma hospital is in part what attracted Fornadley to her new job in the Pacific Northwest.

At 130 beds and 260 employees, the hospital at South 19th Street and Union Avenue fills an important niche in the larger MultiCare Health System of which it’s a part, said Fornadley, two months into her job running the hospital.

An operating room nurse for two decades and then a hospital administrative official in Georgia and North Carolina, Fornadley sees Allenmore as a comfortable, patient-oriented health care facility with an appeal to patients looking for a human touch.

She recently talked about what attracted her to the job and the hospital’s plans to improve and enhance its services.

What attracted you to seek the job running Allenmore?

It was sort of fate. We had planned a vacation this summer in the Pacific Northwest. My husband is an outdoors guy and a huge fly fisherman. So this was a major attraction. I love the beauty of the West. We had talked about maybe retiring to Washington state. When the job came across my computer, the location was attractive.

Besides the region’s allure, what about the Allenmore job itself was compelling to you?

The fact that Allenmore is a small hospital makes it easier to get my hands around things here. The fact that it was also part of a health system, so it was part of a larger organization made it what I was used to in Greensboro, N.C., where I was executive director of operative services for Moses Cone Health System. There I was in charge of operative services, the operating rooms, recovery rooms and pre-operative services, at three hospitals. I had exposure to that, but the job at Allenmore was an opportunity to broaden my experience.

Where does Allenmore fit into the larger MultiCare system that includes Tacoma General, Mary Bridge and Good Samaritan hospitals?

I think Allenmore’s is still an evolving role. Allenmore helps out with patients going to the emergency room. Of course, patients chose to come to Allenmore for emergency services, but it’s also been a safety valve when the emergency department is overloaded at TG. And there are certain services that we only do here where we specialize.

What are some of those services?

Basically we do urology here, not that (patients) won’t go to TG, but the services for urology are concentrated here. We do ophthalmology here. We do orthopedics.

Why do some doctors or patients prefer Allenmore?

There are certain physicians who like to come to Allenmore. And patients come here just because it is a smaller hospital. You don’t get lost in it.

What’s your emphasis as you take charge?

As a nurse, I think running a hospital is always about patient care. That’s where my focus is. I can tell you that I have a wonderful staff here. My focus is on customer satisfaction. And along with that, employee satisfaction, because if I have employees who are happier, they are going to be transferring that to their patients.

Is Allenmore introducing new programs?

One of the things we’ve done and that I’ve brought here from my other experiences, is something called “hourly rounding.” What we’ve asked our staff is to purposely round every hour and check on our patients. What we do is introduce ourselves and tell the patients that we’ll be making rounds hourly. We have what we call the “five P’s.” We ask them how their pain is. We can help them fix that? Then proximity. Is everything close enough for them to get? Then we ask them about positioning. Are you comfortable? Can we move the pillow? We ask them potty. Do you need to go to the bathroom? Then there’s “pickle.” That comes from an orientation video in which a gentleman who has a restaurant asks his customers if they want a pickle with their sandwich. So you find out what your patient wants and then go a bump beyond.

It has been proven that this system improves patient safety. The patient feels better taken care of. And it really ends up being an efficiency measure for staff because your lights stop turning on. Patients know that you’ll be coming around and they wait until then to ask for something or hopefully you’ve already asked and it’s been taken care of.

What physical improvements are coming at Allenmore?

We’re getting ready to remodel what we call the step-down unit. Once you get out of the intensive care unit and before you’re ready to go to the general medical-surgical floor, you need monitoring less than you need in the ICU, then you go to the step-down unit, the progressive care unit. That’s going to be modeled after the ICU. We’ve just remodeled our radiology unit and the lobby with the new coffee shop. We’re also getting ready to remodel the second entrance to the hospital where a lot of our patients come through for registration.

Then we’ll move to revamp our medical-surgical unit. We’ll be going to all private rooms. Now we have semiprivate rooms. Our customers want private rooms.

John Gillie: 253-597-8663

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Elise Fornadley

Job: Administrator, Allenmore Hospital

Born: Baltimore

Age: “Early 50s”

Education: Sinai Hospital School of Nursing, Baltimore; George Washington University, Washington, D.C.; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, master’s in public management

Career: Operating room nurse for 20 years; hospital administration in Greensboro, N.C., and Savannah, Ga.

Home: Gig Harbor

Family: Husband and one “small white cat”