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CurrentsTo Medical Center Employees: Our MUSC Excellence initiative is up and running. Our MUSC Excellence broad-based goals are to make our Medical Center a great place to work, a great place for patient care and a great place for physicians to practice medicine and teach. Currently we are beginning the process of implementing three core components of our MUSC Excellence plan, including Leadership Development, Leadership Evaluation and Service Excellence Teams. The Leadership Development involves off campus training for two days each quarter for nearly all Medical Center employees responsible for hiring and performance evaluation. The training sessions include progress reports concerning our goals, discussions of an array of best practices and group exercises. “Homework” assignments are given to ensure that we practice and implement best practices covered at the leadership training sessions. A Leadership Evaluation Team is beginning its work in development of a new performance evaluation for leaders. This new evaluation will replace our current management evaluation in the future. Measurable goals will be defined in the leader evaluations and these goals will be linked to our Medical Centerwide goals. The new evaluation system will involve more frequent updates and a higher level of accountability. Team leaders for the Service Teams have been appointed and in the near future the teams will be populated. The Service Teams will focus upon: Measurement; Patient Satisfaction; Communication; Standards; Service Recovery; Reward and Recognition; and Employer of Choice. There will be multiple entity-specific Patient Satisfaction Teams including: Inpatient; Outpatient and Ancillary; Emergency Department; Institute of Psychiatry; and Pediatrics and Women’s. We are currently exploring methods to enhance our patient satisfaction survey tool(s). As we move forward we will enhance our MUSC Excellence communication to include reporting on each of the core components listed above. Sincerely, W. Stuart Smith Vice President for Clinical Operations and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center New hospital, service excellence discussedSpeech-Language Program manager Diane Andrews and senior speech-language pathologist Becky McCown reminded the audience that May is Better Speech and Hearing Month and the MUSC Evelyn Trammell Institute for Voice and Swallowing will be offering a free public screening for communications, feeding or swallowing disorders. The event will take place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., second floor of Rutledge Tower on May 5. The screening is open to any pediatric or adult referrals. No appointment is necessary. Phase One New Hospital Update Chris Malanuk, director of strategic planning and project director for the new hospital, provided a progress report on the ongoing construction effort. Malanuk began his presentation with a word of thanks to the MUSC family for their support in signing the commemorative 15-foot beam on April 7. The structure was fixed in a prominent location of the new hospital’s curved exterior wall. Byron Edwards and Greg Soyka, the lead health care architects with LS3P on the project, reviewed slides of the current construction progress and unveiled visual renderings of the phase one new hospital and central energy plant. Touted as a world-class 21st century design, Edwards proudly reviewed the new hospital’s construction time line displaying architectural renderings and models, actual construction progress, and project skyline views from different points of the city. “What impresses me most about this project is that we’ve been very pleased with the construction management, detail, speed, and quality of work produced by construction crews. The project is so futuristic and different and I’m looking forward to staff and the community identifying with it. It will be particularly exciting to watch it come into operation as a world-class health care facility,” Edwards said. Kindred Hospital Charleston Kindred Hospital’s Sherri Beasley, director of marketing, and Debbie Cosby, clinical liaison, gave an overview of Kindred Hospital Charleston, a long-term acute care facility located on the third floor of Charleston Memorial Hospital building. A 59-bed facility, Kindred provides specialized, focused care to acutely ill patients or those requiring an extended stay in an acute care hospital. Cosby reminded managers that the average length of stay for patients within a short-term acute care hospital is four to six days. At Kindred, the average length of stay is 25 days, allowing patients more time for focused clinical intervention and recovery. Kindred patients are admitted under the care of an attending physician. They also offer a roster of general physicians and specialists available for consultation as needed. Recovering patients may be referred back to their original physician for follow-up and discharge. Like MUSC, Kindred is licensed as an acute care facility, but possesses different reimbursement rates from Medicare. Just recently, Kindred completed its JCAHO re-accreditation and is also certified by Medicare. They provide a wide range of hospital services, rehabilitation and comprehensive services including their MIST Therapy Wound Care, critical care services and ventilator management and weaning program for patients. Working with a skilled interdisciplinary team, Kindred Hospital offers patients with an individualized plan of care that begins at admission and is reviewed bi-weekly by care specialists. Since last July, Kindred imposed changes to its leadership team, enhanced their nursing staff and improved methods for better communications benefitting patients and families. According to Cosby, Kindred’s new mission aims to become a regional provider for patients, families and area hospital partners to provide excellent comprehensive care services while opening its doors to increased collaboration. MUSC Service Excellence Teams Children’s Hospital administrator John Sanders spoke about MUSC Excellence, Service Teams. He reminded managers that teams are being populated now and that the team members willmostly be front line staff. The teams will meet on a weekly basis and managers need to make sure they work with the team members to allow them to atten the weekly meetings going forward. Sanders is working with Ambulatory Care administrator Dave Neff and the team leaders in finalizing the membership of each team. Announcements
HR Announcements Helena Bastian, Human Resources director, reminded directors to pick up their division’s Hospital Week Giveaway tickets from Human Resources. During Hospital Week (May 8-12), daily drawing for prizes that have been donated from local merchants will be awarded. Each employee will be given one ticket to complete with their name, unit/department and telephone number.The unit/department managers are to submit completed tickets to Human Resources (Room 109, Clinical Sciences Building) by May 3 to be eligible for the daily drawings. For information, contact Sheila Griner at 792-0857 or Tiffany Heffner at 792-3580. Bastian introduced Mark Stimpson as the new Benefits and Records manager. Stimpson has more than10 years of extensive benefits and retirement experience of which two have been in the Medical Center’s Human Resources department. Managers were also reminded of their responsibility to conduct primary source verifications of required credentials at the time of renewal. Proper documentation must be maintained in the unit/department file and entered into CATTS. Guidelines are posted on the intranet. Additional questions should be directed to Susan Carullo at 792-1684. Letter of Appreciation Marilyn Schaffner read an e-mail from a College of Medicine Dean’s Office employee about her recent hospital experience. The employee was asked to report to Rutledge Tower Radiology to conduct a series of last-minute X-rays by her physician for an appointment scheduled the following day. Upon arriving at Radiology, she was promptly greeted and checked in. The employee praised the X-ray technicians for their courteous care and professional attitudes. As was expected, the X-rays were available at her appointment the following day. “It was a great experience from beginning to end,” she wrote. Friday, April 28, 2006 |