KV Healthcare

Your Home for Health

Kristl Densley

Home Again: The old Cle Elum Hospital operating lamp’s journey back to Upper County

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On September 27, 2022, a large crate with the words, “FRAGILE” imprinted on the side arrived at the KVH loading dock. So large that it had people guessing what could be inside. An item of this size wasn’t expected to arrive. Affixed to the outside of the pallet was a small 4×6 photograph of the contents…a large operating lamp from the old Cle Elum Hospital. As it was carefully opened, there was a handwritten note inside with such penmanship as was hard to distinguish every letter. It read, “Our family is so pleased to donate this piece of Cle Elum history to your hospital. The Fassero family were pioneers in Cle Elum…Peter Fassero was born there in 1905. After raising a family with his wife, Mary (children Delona & Donn) Peter retired and sold his Economy Grocery Store and Wrote weekly columns in the Tribune.”  The lamp had been a gift to the family upon Peter’s retirement. After his passing, the family felt it was only right to donate it back to its home. As layers of bubble wrap, shrink wrap, and many, many layers of tape were moved aside, a beautiful operating lamp from the 1930s was discovered.

The lamp was long and slender with a bulbous counterbalance on one end. This was to help keep the lamp steady during procedures as it was hung from the ceiling. Along the slender metal body, were found two switches protruding from metal casing looking every bit of their nearly 100-year-old age. At the base of the long, slender portion, it began to branch out, almost like tree branches but looking more alien as the moments went along. A large lamp surrounded by what looked like a metal colander was the centerpiece. On either end of this lamp was a framework that supported three individual mirrors angled just so, making six mirrors in all. Inside the center lamp was an intricate series of small mirrors that seem to be angled to refract the most amount of light from a single light bulb as possible. One can imagine it hanging in place and providing enough refracted light for the surgeon to see even the tiniest detail while miners, loggers, and farmers were lying on the table as families hoped everything was going to be alright.

The lid was carefully closed, and the crate was moved to storage, tucked away for safekeeping. Kittitas Valley Healthcare had a large, cast iron, vintage operating lamp with no immediate plan.

In 2024, the KVH Family Medicine – Cle Elum decided to revamp its lobby. This plan involved updating the wall hangings and removing the too-faded photographs that had become hard to distinguish, to hang posters that share the KVH values reminding patients and visitors that we all have a unified goal across all clinics, and to make it feel warm and inviting once more. With the posters hung, and old faded photographs from the area removed, the clinic was missing something. It was missing the people. It was missing the people and places that brought life to the Upper County in the first place. Turning our attention towards bringing the history back to the walls, the Central Washington University Archive was contacted. They supplied hundreds of images from all of Upper County. Combing through these images was like being transported back to a time when people worked hard out in the elements every day, where large parades celebrated culture and holidays, where boys and girls basketball teams played after school, where new inventions were tried out, and where the culture of the Upper County began.

Two large frames were secured to the walls with many photographs from that time, courtesy of the CWU Archive. They are like stepping back in time and reconnecting to the life that is rooted in that place. But something was still missing, the operating lamp. With careful planning and approval, the lamp made its way back to Cle Elum where it oversaw so many medical moments in the history of Upper County. It was headed back to where it belonged. On July 24, 2024, the lamp made its journey to its destination. After some unique engineering, it was suspended from the wall right next to the archive photos of people who may have seen it long ago. It points towards every patient who walks into the clinic doors welcoming them to take a step back in time. To the Fassero family, we thank you. We will be good stewards of this donation. To the community, our clinic is feeling just a little more complete today. The lamp has made its way home at Your Home for Health. 

Kristl Densley, Marketing Coordinator
Kittitas Valley Healthcare

CFO Transition

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Jason Adler has officially transitioned to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Kittitas Valley Healthcare.

Wait a minute! Congratulations are in order. Jason advanced within the Kittitas Valley Healthcare system through hard work, dedication and a little mentoring from Scott Olander, our outgoing CFO. I met with Scott and Jason to get to know a little bit more about advancement opportunities within the KVH family and how Jason prepared for his new role.

How it started…
“Mentoring began for me when I started here with Jason,” Scott declared as he took his glasses off to see a little better. “He was interested in learning. He’d done a lot of work previously on pieces of the cost report, and he’d been involved in pieces of contract negotiations and things like that. But he was interested and he had actual knowledge of the organization. So, it was informally at that point, but it was right from the very, very beginning.” He said, turning to Jason, to pass the baton.

Jason added, “Yeah. [mentoring] was both ways. I think I expressed willingness to learn. And he expressed he had a lot of knowledge that I realized real quick that I could take from his past experiences and leverage it for KVH.”

“Yeah!” Scott exclaimed, ignited by something Jason had said, “Jason’s really strong with the data and technical analysis and stuff like that. And I’m not. I understand the data, but I’m not good at pulling the data. So, I’ve learned that mentoring, the learning, I guess, has gone both ways from my perspective.”

I then asked about the process of being mentored and the benefits of doing internal hires as opposed to hiring positions externally.

Scott quickly chimed in, “It was a board assignment to work towards some continuity and progression through retirements and turnover transitions. Also, just to demonstrate to the entire organization to be thinking in this capacity of continuity and transition planning. Julie wanted all the department leaders or all the organizational leaders to kind of identify a succession plan and to identify individuals that we would mentor and coach to prepare for potential future opportunity.”

Scott, continuing his train of thought, “I personally think that some of your best hires are within the organization [because] they are committed to the community; they’re committed to the organization. There’s always bright people elsewhere that you can bring in, but they may not have the commitment to the community.”

With that strong perspective in mind, I asked what they both would do moving forward, what are they going to steal from one another’s’ styles.

Jason responded, “Being open and collaborative. I think I would steal from Scott trying to be always more collaborative with others’ perspective and slow down a bit but to also keep a pace going. So, set[ting] expectations and pace [within collaborations].”

Scott, adding these clarifying remarks, “You know, there are things that Jason approaches differently than I do. And there’s no right or wrong answers. There’s different answers, different approaches. I am excited about the opportunity to [transition] to rev cycle. I think it will make the organization better. It’ll make the rev cycle better. We’ll be better.”

Jason, remembering a thought from before, “Something that I did learn from Scott, is to allow the managers and support the managers in what they feel they are needing to accomplish their task. Whether that’s FTEs or contractors or supplies, services, to really listen to them and support their needs. I think that I will challenge some of the mangers in some ways too.”

“Probably more so than I did,” Scott said with a chuckle, “Which is understandable. Which is a good change.” Scott says as if to finish Jason’s thought.

Where it’s headed…

I asked them both if they had any advice for employees wanting to advance within the organization or even laterally move and learn new skills.

Jason, with the first thought, “Go to HR and say, “Hey, I’m interested in other roles. Keep your ears open with what might be a good fit.” You can dabble in other areas and gain experience.”

Scott, being contemplative, “From the employee side, I think, if they’re willing to be patient and to work hard, and be willing to do different things, one of the things that distinguished Jason is he was willing to try other things and take on other assignments. And to the degree that you, as he described, as a small organization, there’s not necessarily a clear path to the other positions and other opportunities. It’s not readily apparent. But if you work hard and are patient, those opportunities come around, they really do.”

Continuing while gesturing to Jason, “It’s kind of the same thing that happens with Jason. You know, he was an analyst, he worked with a lot of people within the organization, particularly with budgeting and…” he said trailing off.

“Hard work definitely breeds trust.” I interjected trying to guess his unfinished phrase.

“Mm-hmm.” Scott responded immediately.

Jason, rounding out his last thoughts, “For successful mentorship and personal experiences is just having that really high respect for your mentors and mentees and everybody around you, really. Keep that healthy amount of friction, push back, but have that very healthy respectful balance there.”

In conclusion, we agreed that within our KVH organization, we foster giving employees a voice. And when people have a voice, they can feel invested. Being invested leads to action and hard work and that, leads to opportunity. And mentoring and being mentored IS opportunity.

Opportunities await…