Pictured, from left, are Brian Durniok, UPMC Chautauqua president, and Cecil Miller, UPMC Chautauqua vice president of operations. Submitted photo

After six years of growth through its affiliation with UPMC, UPMC Chautauqua, formerly WCA Hospital, plans on continuing to improve by focusing on core elements of its mission.

Brian Durniok, UPMC Chautauqua president, said the hospital’s vision for the future revolves around four key elements that the hospital remains focused on as a healthcare organization.

The first element UPMC Chautauqua plans on continuing to provide and improve in the future is high quality care for patients.

“If you have good quality, then people have peace of mind,” Durniok said. “They know what’s happening is safe, and they’re going to have a good outcome.

In addition to making sure that every patient has a “top notch” experience at UPMC Chautauqua, Durniok said the hospital wants to ensure that each patient feels safe and cared for throughout every healthcare experience.

“Our staff do a wonderful job of making sure they connect with the patients and that we’re not just making you better, but we’re caring for you, and those are two different things,” he said.

Durniok explained that the third emphasis for UPMC Chautauqua as it continues to expand involves engaging the hospital’s staff. He said he “couldn’t be more proud” of the staff at UPMC Chautauqua, especially with the “outstanding job” the physicians and employees reflected in their work during the past few years with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think about where we started three years ago knowing very little about this, and the courage our employees had and the courage our physicians had when we didn’t know much but they came in and they took care of people and they were passionate about making sure that this community was cared for,” Durniok said.

As UPMC Chautauqua continues to grow and improve, Durniok stressed the importance of the hospital remaining engaged with the staff and taking care of each employee.

Finally, Durniok said the leadership of UPMC Chautauqua will continue to serve as “good financial stewards” of the organization. He added that it is important for UPMC Chautauqua to do its “best” financially in order to ensure the “viability” of the healthcare provider remains “excellent” well into the future.

“If we focus on those things, we will continue to grow and we will continue to thrive because each part of that four-legged stool is important for us to be successful,” he said. “We’re a firm believer that if we have a great patient experience and if our quality is good, patients will seek us out. I think it’s important that that’s our primary focus.”

While Durniok said that UPMC Chautauqua will continue to implement additional services that “make sense” in the community, he explained that it is important for the hospital not to try to replicate services that would be “better positioned” at other healthcare facilities, such as UPMC Hamot’s location in Erie.

“It’s about doing the right things and doing them really well, and if you do that, you’re going to be able to take care of the vast majority of people we have and need our services,” he said. “For those people who have more acute emergent needs, knowing that we’re literally a helicopter away from something that’s really challenging and requires additional expertise. I think it’s the best of both worlds.”