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Currents To Medical Center employees: At our Oct. 24 Step Up planning meeting, the management team discussed rolling out the November campaign as highlighted below. I hope everyone will take part in this campaign—it should be easy and fun. Little things make a big difference.    The Step Up campaign will help us focus our attention on customer service during November. We have many employees who are excellent role models, and our intent is to collectively focus on our customer service behaviors. Our goal is to enhance customer satisfaction—to include patients, families, visitors, physicians, employees and others. We intend to place greater emphasis on measuring our progress.    Thank you very much. W. Stuart Smith Vice President for Clinical Operations  and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center ‘Step Up’ rolls out—a playful way to improve customer, staff satisfaction With a flair for fun, the Medical Center administrative team presented Step Up, a campaign to inspire employees to step up customer service and offer peer recognition. The presentation was made at an Oct. 24 special meeting of the management team.   The Step Up rollout program began with an introduction by Stuart Smith, MUSC Medical Center executive director, of “a world-renowned expert in customer service” Jolly Jodell—a.k.a. Jodell Johnson, R.N., Infection Control coordinator. Johnson, wearing a colorful clown costume, bantered with Smith over the importance of good customer service. “Being good is not good enough,” she admonished. “We need to be even better!”   The Step Up campaign, which begins Nov. 1, is a 30-day effort for all Medical Center employees to identify ways to improve customer satisfaction both internally and externally, increase staff morale and retention, and minimize patient complaints.   A goal of the campaign is to help MUSC become a “five-star organization.” While the Step Up campaign is a 30-day effort, the plan is to continue our focus on measuring customer service and employee satisfaction with a theme of “what’s measured and fun gets done.”   Marilyn Schaffner, R.N., Clinical Services administrator, presented details of the campaign. Managers will introduce the Step Up campaign to staff by sharing a copy of the “Step Up Service Actions and Attitudes” list and asking what items they think departments could improve.   Schaffner described the “Caught You” slips—small pieces of paper that staff members can use to acknowledge positive actions and personal service to others. “A Step Up is any conscious effort to provide customer or coworker service excellence,” she said. “Give a ‘Caught You’ slip when a coworker Steps Up. Make sure to give it immediately to reinforce the great example.”    Employees are asked to write down two things they could Step Up in their personal service to others. Individuals and teams will be asked to set goals, then track and report them on a weekly basis. Tracking can be done creatively.  Employees are not limited to Stepping Up only on the two things selected; any conscious customer service effort can count as a Step Up.    Since April, the Medical Center has been working with The McNair Group, a local training firm, to provide training and development to support this effort. Managers, directors and administrators have attended 27 hours of training focused on customer service, communications, change and team building.    Some 240 employees have attended “first impressions” training sessions thus far; the plan is to have approximately 600 employees complete the training by March 2003.  The leadership and “first impressions” training will continue throughout 2003 and will involve an even greater number of coordinators and employees.   Results of the organizational assessment survey were presented by Chris Malanuk, director of Strategic Planning. The survey measures employee responses to questions regarding patient satisfaction, employee satisfaction, retention and other customer service-related reports. Malanuk said 1,900 responded to the survey, which he described as a good response.“We have seen some improvements since the last survey,” he said.    Rosemary Ellis, director of Quality, presented data on patient satisfaction. In particular she complimented the Children’s Hospital on its patient satisfaction data. “Children’s Hospital leads the pack,” she said.   Hospital administrator Betts Ellis presented data on employee turnover. “In a nutshell, it looks good,” he said, “but we need to focus carefully on opportunities to encourage employee retention.” The plan is to provide turnover details to all managers through a Web-based server by February 2003.   As Jolly Jodell says, “Remember to work on ESE—eye contact, smile, engage!”   JCAHO Mock Survey findings - preliminary report The JCAHO consultants completed the Mock Survey with an exit interview on Oct. 23. The consultants visited more than 30 units throughout the organization and completed interviews with the leadership team and staff on topics ranging from process improvement efforts to infection control practices. The mock audit was intended to produce an assessment of MUSC one-year before the survey and is part of the effort to achieve “continuous survey readiness.”  Significant improvements in the areas of patient safety and patients’ rights were reported.     Opportunities for improvement include: Continuum of Care A major focus in the survey will be the continuum of care. Surveyors will measure patients’ perspectives as they move through the organization . Leadership Patient safety is and will continue to be driven by the leadership of the organization. We have made substantial progress with our patient safety initiatives. Future patient safety efforts will include outpatient areas, as well as staff education. The consultants reported that the overall performance in the mock survey was very good. A full report of the findings is forthcoming.  As we move through the next year, the consultants will be conducting unit visits in the hospital to increase JCAHO standards awareness and education.   The survey process will change over the next few years. In 2003, the surveyors will begin with the document review, including performance improvement activities, medical staff and hospital committee reports, planning documents and governing body documents.  Questions for the leadership survey will be derived from the document review. Our leadership team should be well versed in the content of the documents and prepared to answer questions.         Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.