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Currents To Medical Center Employees: The Medical Center’s two year tactical plan focuses on five core areas including financial performance, provider of choice (patient satisfaction), employer of choice (staff satisfaction), quality and safety and information management. A “champion” has been assigned to spearhead work groups involved in each of the core initiatives. We are relying on managers, work group members and others to widely disseminate updates on progress being made.  The Medical Center intranet Web site (http://www.musc.edu/medcenter/tactical-plan/) provides easy access for Medical Center employees to keep abreast of the tactical plan progress and to identify work group members in order to share ideas or suggestions.  Progress regarding attainment of the patient satisfaction and financial performance goals, key elements of the tactical plan, is also posted on the Medical Center intranet Web site. Routine updates will also continue to be routinely disseminated through other methods such as messages printed on pay check stubs. Attainment of our satisfaction goals are measured by scores from two key NRC/Picker Patient Satisfaction survey questions including “overall quality of care” and “would recommend to others.”  To date we are currently on target with our goal for “overall quality of care” but we have work to do to achieve our goal related to “would recommend.”  At the Dec. 7 meeting, Carol Younker, manager of risk management and champion for the Provider of Choice tactical plan initiative, updated the management team on work underway as indicated below in this newsletter, including a dedicated “R team” to focus on problem areas. All Medical Center employees “own” patient satisfaction. While the R team focuses on certain problem areas, we all must fine tune our policies, practices and behaviors to demonstrate our organization’s “expectation of excellent customer service.” Everyone’s cooperation and support is needed.  Thank you very much. W. Stuart Smith Vice President for Clinical Operations and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center Provider of Choice work group on target Carol Younker, who heads up the Provider of Choice target area of the Medical Center’s Tactical Plan, began her presentation of work group activities in with “truths about service excellence.” Success in service excellence is dependent on leadership. Improving customer satisfaction scores is a slow process, but it is absolutely possible. Leadership, peer pressure and pride will be what drives and sustains this effort. Two critical elements of a successful campaign are zero tolerance for poor customer service and an expectation of exceptional customer service. Scripting and role modeling work. If you do enough things right, customers will forgive the things you do wrong. “We have three work groups under the Provider of Choice target area,” Younker said. “One is customer service. The second is an internal awareness area, and the third we refer to as the “R” team. The R team is an extremely focused group to work on the “would you recommend” aspect of our satisfaction questionnaire.” The Customer Service Work Group’s 12 members have been focusing on four top objectives: Monitor results of patient satisfaction survey activities and identify opportunities for improve-ment; Assure effective action plans are designed and implemented in relation to identified opportunities; Evaluate effectiveness of customer service training programs and recommend enhance-ments as indicated; Establish a cost-effective service recovery program. “One of the ways we started this group was to tackle the questions, ‘What types of things make for a bad patient experience? As an employee, what kinds of complaints do you hear about the most? and As a consumer, what kinds of negative experiences have you had?’” Younker said that the group came up with a list of customer service challenges categorized into seven areas: signage/way-finding access; appearance/maintenance; staffing; wait times for services; billing; lost valuables; and other (communication with patients about the things they need to know). The Internal Awareness Work Group’s objectives are to identify strengths and achievements that differentiate the Medical Center in the market, develop an internal communication campaign to raise employee awareness of strengths and achievements, and create a plan for developing Medical Center employees into effective, positive community ambassadors to potential patients, referrers and employees. Regarding the specially dedicated R team, Younker said that this “would you recommend” team will have a focused effort for each of six areas: adult inpatient; childbirth, Children’s Hospital; psych-iatry, adult emergency and pediatric emergency. She said that although most of the tactical plan progress is looking good, the “would you recommend” area remains a problem. “All of us wonder, ‘What is this and how do we change it?’” To address the Provider of Choice category of the Tactical Plan, Younker said that the work groups will address specific issues on surveys, develop action plans for each identified customer service challenge and develop an internal communication campaign regarding MUSC strengths and challenge resolutions. Online Shopping Dave Bennett, manager of web resource services for the Medical Center's Business Development and Marketing Services office, introduced a newly piloted program for online shopping for staff members. “There are all kinds of products, shirts, hats, cups, you can pretty much name it,” Bennett said. “You can reach it by going to the Medical Center intranet page and clicking on the MUSC Online Store link.” Bennett said that the sale of promotional items for our clinical service areas will result in a portion of the sale coming back to the Medical Center to “hopefully get that three and a half percent margin we're looking for.” Bennett demonstrated that the site includes a choice of the authorized MUSC service line logos. Bennett said that he would appreciate feedback on the products featured and encouraged the administrators and managers in attendance to “convince staff members to take advantage of the products.” The site can be found at http://www.companywear.com/musc/.    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.