CurrentsTo Medical Center Employees:Recently the management team, including nearly all Medical Center supervisors with responsibility for hiring and evaluation, took part in our second MUSC Excellence Leadership Development Institute (LDI). Studer Group coaches also attended and took part in the presentations. The LDIs are designed to train managers how to be better leaders. We will continue to hold LDIs on a quarterly basis to remain focused on our MUSC Excellence goals, for progress reports and for hands-on training. At the LDI we discussed realignment of measurable Medical Center goals according to pillars of excellence. We shared draft Medical Center organizational goals. We plan to fine tune our Medical Center-wide goals by July 2006. Our MUSC Excellence initiative includes various “Must Haves” or best practices which will be gradually rolled out over time. Must Haves discussed at the LDI included leadership evaluation, rounding and AIDET. In the future, leaders will be evaluated on their department-specific goals which are directly linked to the broader organizational goals. It will take a year to fully implement this new evaluation system, which will be online to enable routine 90-day review and updates. At the first LDI we heard a presentation on “Rounding for Outcomes” on employees. We had a follow up presentation at the most recent LDI that included methods for rounding on patients and internal customers. Rounding provides opportunities to recognize individuals for a job well done, determine systems that need improvement, assess patient needs and satisfaction, determine if departments’ service needs are being met and to address a variety of other matters. Leaders will improve rounding skills over time. We also discussed a best practice referred to as “AIDET” and “key words at key times.” AIDET stands for Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explanation and Thank You. AIDET is particularly well suited for clinical care and can also be used in other settings. Among other things, AIDET improves a patient’s experience, reinforces coordination of care and decreases patient anxiety and concern. We will be rolling out AIDET training in the months ahead and will pilot it in certain areas right away. At the next Town Hall meeting we will have an employee satisfaction update and discuss MUSC Excellence goals and initiatives. The schedule for the next Town Hall meeting sessions is included in this newsletter. Thank you for your support. W. Stuart Smith Vice President for Clinical Operations and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center Emergency response, NetID reviewedInfrastructure Application Supports’ Mitchelle Morrison revealed details with the NetID Project, which focuses on the merge of MNA and Active Directory (AD) accounts within the Medical Center. Ultimately, everyone working in the Medical Center and university side will be required to have an active registration.Morrison reviewed the basics associated with NetID standards including name space, password complexity and distribution and registration. New users receive a NetID of the form “xyz5” and an e-mail alias based on his/her name. Existing user’s can use the MNA/AD account name will become their NetID account name. Their existing e-mail name will become their e-mail alias. Passwords must be set using between 6 and 10 characters in length and contain three of the following: a numeric, uppercase, lowercase or special characters. If a user does not know their password or answers to two shared security secrets, they can visit a designated security station, which includes the Medical Center Security desk and the Library Systems Office. The Medical Center, University, and UMA human resources departments are responsible for establishing registration authorities as needed. Currently, the NetID project team is in the process of implementing the Sun Java Identity manger, set new processes with new users, coordinate 60-day activation schedule for existing NetID users. The program provides the foundation using a NetID to provide a single account for users to log into and use various programs. Details about the NetID project will be publicized in upcoming Catalyst articles in June and July. Disaster Preparedness Performance Standards and Tropical Storm Alberto Update Al Nesmith reviewed details about the Medical Center’s Emergency Management and Response and details regarding emergency/disaster performance standards. During an impending emergency/disaster call, Medical Center incident command center team will provide directors and managers with disaster response instructions transmitted via Simon pager. Managers should reemphasize to employees that they should continue with normal, routine tasks and duties unless instructed otherwise by their immediate supervisor and/or direction from the Incident Command Center Team. During such an emergency/disaster, the Medical Center will activate the Incident Command Center, Room 205-C, Main Hospital, 792-3232/792-4000. The center will house all senior-level hospital administrators, directors and other key personnel. Leaders make specific decisions and distribute information to the medical center administrative and clinical teams as the situation dictates. The Medical Center’s Emergency Management system currently uses the Hospital Emergency Incident Command System (HEICS), which assigns key personnel to manage and coordinate specific actions and functions during various emergency/disaster incident. Nesmith also spoke about medical equipment management throughout the Medical Centers. At issue are outdated, illegible or absent preventative maintenance (PM) stickers on equipment. Managers should call Al Barton, 792-3984 for immediate help. He also reminded the audience that all equipment requiring preventative maintenance should have a silver-blue inspection sticker and be inspected prior to use. Equipment such as suction regulators, BP manometers and oto-ophthalmoscopes that do not require PM stickers can be repaired as needed. Other equipment managed through vendor agreements such as blood glucose checkers should be assessed and approved by biomedical engineering. Department-specific inventory lists can be obtained by contacting Barton. Finally, Nesmith reviewed the latest status of Tropical Storm Alberto. Nesmith reported on its current track as of noon, June 13. With flooding concerns and high winds predicted, Nesmith assured the audience that he and other emergency management personnel will continue to monitor the weather situation very closely and make the necessary recommendations as the situation develops. Education Roll-Out Committee Clinical Services Administration’s Laurie Zone-Smith, Ph.D., gave a progress report on the Education Roll-Out Committee, an interdisciplinary committee designed to be the dissemination point-of-contact for standardized education and information for patient care or patient contact staff. Composed of members from various hospital areas including managers, designated educators and education-liaison members, the group has actively met since April. Beginning June, the committee will meet bimonthly (first and fourth Thursday except June and July) at various locations. This month, the group’s agenda addressed numerous topics from details with hand-off communication/transfer forms to documenting weight in kilograms, JCAHO Primary Stroke Center certification and other information. Zone-Smith invites managers to ensure all areas are representative and appropriate education is disseminated to specific groups. Information can be found at http://www.musc.edu/clincd/edrollout/index.htm. Public Reporting of Health Care-Associated Infections Infection Control’s Beth Rhoton reported on the latest news regarding health care infection rates and public misconceptions. Rhoton and other health care professionals believe that the public needs information to make good, informed decisions regarding their health care. And professionals are responding to public demands. In February 2005, a consensus conference was held on the mandatory reporting of health care-associated infections in Atlanta and convened by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control. Partners in this effort included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Hospital Association, Consumers Union, National Quality Forum, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Barriers were discussed and recommendations were made for public reporting. Later, the CDC produced the HICPAC “Guidance on Public Reporting of Healthcare-Associated Infections. Rhoton has been an active player with the new South Carolina Hospital Infections Disclosure Act (S.C. Act #293). This fast-moving piece of legislation was introduced to the S.C. Senate in April and House in May. Through Rhoton’s involvement, key changes were made to the bill that benefits hospital reporting. The bill was passed by the General Assembly May 25 and signed by Gov. Sanford on May 31 making S.C. the 10 state to require mandatory reporting of health care-associated infection rates. All S.C. hospitals are required to comply to this. Currently, DHEC seeks to coordinate an advisory committee composed of infection control professionals, hospital epidemiologists, members of the S.C. Hospital Association and health care consumers. The committee will determine what definitions will be used for health care-associated infections and how those rates will be calculated based on denominator data. Because of its rapidity, the committee has the choice between using an established system, the CDC’s National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System. Hospitals will report on surgical site infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia and central line-associated blood stream infections, plus anything DHEC or the advisory committee deems the public should know. The rates will be reported to DHEC every six months with MUSC’s first report due before February 2008. DHEC is mandated to publish the first report prior to February 2009. More importantly, health care consumers will be able to compare infection rates between hospitals to make informed choices regarding their health care. Rhoton reminded managers that compliance with reporting rates to DHEC is a condition to hospital licensure. Public education is important and that MUSC as a hospital help the public understand what infection rates mean and how that can help them discuss that with physicians regarding their health care. ACC Update Co-chairman Bill Spring, Heart & Vascular Center, thanked the dozens of people who continue to work with the Phase 1 Action Coordinating Committee (ACC) operational effort. Spring mentioned that Stuart Smith will be bringing Kurt Salmon & Associates back to assist the ACC and its implementation teams to provide projections and needed updates. Spring also thanked Smith for implementing the return of the executive steering committee for Phase 1 ACC which includes leadership from Jerry Reves, M.D., John Feussner, M.D., Fred Crawford, M.D., plus other key personnel. Action O-I Pamela Marek reminded managers that the Action O-I reports for the first quarter of 2006 (January to March) are now available to be refreshed. On June 30, the next quarter will end and managers are encouraged to continue gathering data for the Aug. 10 deadline posting second quarter 2006 figures. HR Update MUHA Human Resources director Helena Bastian reminded the audience of the PTO/Cash-in Conversion was approved for fiscal year 2007. Further details are available through MUHA Intranet. Eligible employees must have a balance of 120 hours remaining PTO balance to cash-in or convert up to 40 hours of PTO twice a year, July and December. This program is dependent upon the Medical Center's financial status. The deadline to submit completed forms for the July conversions is June 23. Eligible employees can obtain a PTO/Cash-in conversion form via the HR Web site. The June 21 pay date will be paperless. Employees may obtain pay information by excessing MyRecord at http://mcintranet.musc.edu/HR/generalinfo/myrecords.htm. Employees must have an MNA account to access MyRecord. For information, call Payroll’s Patty Burn, 792-7544. Announcements
Friday, June 16, 2006 |
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