July 23, 1998

The strategic plan is in final draft form and will be presented to the MUSC Board of Trustees at its August meeting. Many of the plan’s objectives involve the Medical Center management team and are in keeping with our discussion at the February management retreat. While the board is not expected to reach a final decision on the complete strategic plan until October, we should be able to begin work on a number of the objectives following the board’s August meeting.

At our July 21 communications meeting Mr. Marc Williams, manager, clinical neurophysiology services and APPLAUSE committee chair, announced the AREA award winners as discussed below. The APPLAUSE recognition program, which is the basis for the AREA awards, has been very successful since its beginning in October 1996. The program was designed based upon a similar recognition program developed by key staff of the University Medical Associates. I am very pleased with the level of involvement by employees in submitting APPLAUSE cards to recognize outstanding work. Mr. Williams and the APPLAUSE committee have done a great job in keeping this program on track and in selecting employees for AREA awards. Thanks for a job well done.

W. Stuart Smith, Interim Vice President for Clinical Operations Interim CEO, MUSC Medical Center

Announcements

• Pam Cipriano, Ph.D., administrator for Clinical Services, announced that the Medical Center Personal Appearance and Dress Code Policy will be shared via e-mail with managers. The policy will be distributed later for placement in the policy manual and will be available on-line through MUSC’s homepage. She said that changes to the dress code were initiated by employees who felt a professional appearance was not being shown consistently throughout the Medical Center. Managers were asked to share the policy with employees by discussing it in meetings, posting a copy or distributing copies, depending on what works best for each area. Some changes were made to the draft version based upon comments received. The policy will be effective Sept. 1.
• The Medical Center Human Resources office will begin accepting applications (8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.) in room 109C, Children’s Hospital, effective Aug. 6. This new employment service is a cooperative effort with the MUSC Department of Human Resources located in Harborview Office Tower.

Recognition

AREA Award Winners Announced

• At the July 21 communications meeting, Marc Williams, manager of clinical neurophysiology services in Therapeutic Services, announced the quarter’s AREA Award recipients, chosen by the APPLAUSE committee from APPLAUSE winners. AREA represents the Medical Center’s core values of accountability, respect, excellence and adaptability.
• George Chajewski, Food and Nutrition Services. Chef Chajewski was instrumental in helping a patient and his family celebrate the Passover meal. He not only provided a place and the means for preparing the meal, but spent many hours of his own time to be with the family to see that all went well.
• Michael Gallo, MEDUCARE. Mr. Gallo was helping get a patient back to her home when he discovered it was on a small island off Pawley’s Island. Assuring the patient’s family that she would be delivered to her bed at her home, Gallo made special arrangements to transport her by flatbottom boat. He worked to secure the patient, himself and the others traveling in the boat for a safe trip across to the island.
• Antonio Gathers, Patient Admissions. Gathers took the time to console a family whose loved one passed away in the trauma center. After Pastoral Care Services staff members had left, he saw that the family was still devastated and took extra time to be with them until he felt they were O.K. The family truly appreciated Gathers’ concern.
• Melvina Wilson, Institute of Psychiatry Impact Program. Wilson planned and prepared a delicious birthday luncheon for a patient’s parent. Because of special transportation requirements, the patient and parent had to travel daily to and from Impact for three months. Wilson knew of the strain this caused and donated her own time and money to help the patient and parent feel special with a celebration. q Each AREA award winner received a plaque and a mall gift certificate.

Surf’s Up—Policy Manuals Hit the Homepage

• Laurie Zone Smith, manager of special projects in Clinical Services, and Jason Rogers, a college student working in Patient Care Systems at the Medical Center this summer, displayed for the management team the new links to policy manuals on the MUSC homepage.
• Zone-Smith said the work of getting the manuals available electronically was initiated by the Manuals On-line Task Force made up of Candace Cooper, Stephanie Davis, Betts Ellis, Jodell Johnson, Carol McDougall, Laura Milligan, Marilyn Schaffner, Maureen Sheakley, Jane Smith, Pam Verdery and Zone-Smith. She also thanked Michael Irving of Patient Care Systems for his help. q For the most direct line to the manuals, click on “Patient Care” on the MUSC homepage (www.musc.edu). In the scroll bar on the left side of the screen, click on “Policy Manuals.” The screen then shows a list of all the manuals located on this site, plus links to manuals housed on other sites, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Manual.
• A search engine allows users to find policies dealing with specific issues. For example, searching for “tuberculosis” brings up a list of all the policies that cover that topic. Typing in “tuberculosis + operating room” will give information on tuberculosis policies as they relate to the operating rooms. The search engine can only find items in manuals housed in the site; manuals that are linked to the site cannot be searched using this engine.
• Rogers pointed out features such as a scroll bar that gives a brief description of a topic when the mouse is pointed at it. He also mentioned that for legal and safety reasons, the policy sites are accessible only from MUSC-affiliated workstations. Rogers is teaching others how to make updates to the manuals using the language of the Internet, called hypertext markup language, or html. Stephanie Davis, Jane Smith and Connie Alge will be helping with the updates.
• Zone-Smith asked for suggestions on links that could be included on the site. She said the Human Resources Management Policy Manual will be available for viewing in the site soon. Anyone with other policy manuals, standards or protocols that should be added to the page can forward disks and a hard copy of the information to Jason Rogers at 249NT.

A Call Center for All Seasons (and Times of Day)

• Hope Colyer, manager of member and referral services in Marketing Services, updated the management team on the many services offered by the department’s call center. On July 13, the call center began providing services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Before that time, Hospital Communications handled the after-hours calls to call center numbers.
• MEDULINE is MUSC’s consultation telephone service for health professionals. The numbers are 1-800-922-5250 or 792-2200 from the Charleston area.
• MEDULINE gives direct access to medical specialists at the MUSC Medical Center 24 hours a day, seven days a week. MEDULINE staff members stay on-line to ensure the referring physicians reach the requested physicians or services. They follow the University Medical Associates Executive Committee’s two-minute protocol when paging MUSC physicians, using the “attending of the day” call schedule as an alternative when the requested physician is not available.
• Physician Liaison Program nurses in Marketing Services help resolve referral problems or concerns from referring physicians who use the service. - MUSC Health Connection is MUSC’s access point for the consumer. The numbers are 1-800-424-MUSC or 792-1414 from the Charleston area.
• MUSC Health Connection helps callers with referrals to MUSC physicians, appointment scheduling, class registration and information about MUSC health care services. A sophisticated database available to Health Connection staff members has information on each service and each physician, including special medical interests. Colyer noted that the accuracy of the database depends on getting timely updates and corrections from each area and asked that new information be sent to her promptly.
• Health Connection staff members can access Oversite on a read-only basis to confirm appointments for patients who call after hours. When callers want to make an appointment after hours, staff members can complete a form that is faxed to the service the next working day.
• Callers to Health Connection also can hear taped health messages from the system’s Health Information Library and Parent Connection Library by following the instructions given.
• The call center has health resource nurses on-line to help when callers have specific health-related questions. These nurses also can help triage emergency calls.
• Carolina Family Care’s main number for accessing primary care services through the call center is 792-7000. Call center staff assist callers to Carolina Family Care with selecting a primary care physician in the network 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• After-Hours Care, sometimes called pediatric triage, provides triage for patients of the Carolina Family Care and community pediatricians who have contracted for this service.

How it works:

• Parent calls pediatrician’s number and the call is answered by pediatrician’s answering service.
• Answering service faxes message to After-Hours Care.
• After Hours-Care nurse calls parent, uses clinical guidelines to determine disposition and directs parent accordingly.
• Triage call report is faxed to pediatrician’s office.
• In recent surveys, the parent satisfaction rate was 97.4 percent. The service is very popular with the 26 participating pediatricians, who pay a per-call fee. The service has been in operation since February 1996 and averages 1,100 calls per month.
• Rob Merenbloom, chairman of the Marketing Task Force, receives a regular report on MEDULINE and Health Connection activities that identifies access or referral problems in departments or services as well as reports of good service received from the different areas. One example of an improvement to the system is a Scheduling Guide that lists all the numbers for appointment scheduling.
• The call center also tracks its own performance in areas such as answering speed and length of calls. The standard for answering calls is 30 seconds. While the call center is still short of reaching that goal, it continues to work to improve service. Several other initiatives in the works or in use:
• In a pilot program, the call center is taking calls that previously went to the Emergency Services nursing station. Call center nurses are using clinical guidelines to help triage these callers.
• The center is working with staff from the Center for Computing and Information Technology on the real-time transfer of information. For example, currently, callers give information to the call center, then must repeat that information to the scheduler.
• Weather emergency information will be housed within the Health Information Library so employees can get updates by phone.
• You can help the call center handle calls to your area.
• Call schedules. If you have changes to make in the course of the month’s schedule, please let the staff know. Fax the information to 2-3597, or call MEDULINE at 2-2200. These changes need to be reported to BOTH the call center and Hospital Communications.
• Changes in extensions, services or general information. Contact Charlotte Webb at 792-7173 or any member of the call center staff with any changes to extensions or anything else relevant to your area.
• Invitation. Visitors are welcome at the call center. If you would like to see firsthand how calls to your area are handled, simply call 792-1414 or 792-2200 and let them know when you’d like to visit.