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Currents To Medical Center Employees: At the Dec. 14 communications meeting David Bennett, Web Resources Manager, presented to the management team the “Get Well Network” (GWN). In recent months the Medical Center completed the Request for Proposals (RFP) process to award a contract for the GWN product. Presentations to various groups to date within the Medical Center concerning GWN and its potential have been enthusiastically received. Our existing televisions along with keyboards and remote controls will provide the bedside access for the GWN interactive communications. The full potential of this technology will be dependent upon our efforts in tailoring the system to address our needs. We hope for a good return on our investment in the GWN product based upon expected enhancements to patient satisfaction, quality of care and operational efficiencies. There will be a learning curve involved in its implementation. Our plan is to gradually roll it out to various patient care areas. An on-site GWN account manager will support the system implementation. Additional details are highlighted below in this newsletter. On another matter, as we approach the winter season and the possibility of icy road conditions, everyone needs to be familiar with our procedures for weather emergencies. Managers, business officers and others are asked to ensure that departmental plans for implementation of the Medical Center Weather Emergency Plan policy #A-64 and Human Resources Hazardous Weather and Emergencies policy #13 are well communicated. The policies can be located on the Medical Center Intranet. Finally, as we close out another successful calendar year, I wish to thank everyone for a job well done. We have made good progress on our fiscal year goals. Have a happy and safe holiday season. Sincerely,    W. Stuart Smith Vice President for Clinical Operations and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center Marketing previews Children’s Hospital ads Lynne Barber, marketing communications manager in the Medical Center’s Institutional Relations-Business Development and Marketing Services office previewed Children’s Hospital television, newspaper and billboard advertising for the communications meeting audience of administrators and managers Tuesday.  The campaign, which centers on the message, “Kids are different. So are we,” highlights the specialized care children receive at the MUSC Children’s Hospital. Her presentation was the consumer portion of an overall marketing plan that includes referring physicians tactics and the statewide initiative. Global strategies include the Channel 5 Health Connection, the Check Up newsletter and the Medical Center website. The marketing campaign’s goal is to establish “brand equity,” Barber said, “and increase our referral base in the primary, secondary and tertiary markets.” Barber credited Alex Sargeant with the “on-target” creative concepting involved in the helping to meet the marketing strategy. Barber said that the spots are on the Channel 5 rotator of the Health Connection series and will show up in print ads and billboards in January, a time when the advertising dollar goes further than in December. Employer of Choice Helena Bastian, who heads up the Employer of Choice target area of the Medical Center’s Tactical Plan, began by saying that the reason for being employer of choice is ultimately become provider of choice, a tactical plan topic covered last week. “Our goal for this part of the tactical plan is to reduce turnover of permanent positions to 11 percent (October’s year to date is 13 percent) and reduce core RN turnover to 13 percent (now at 16 percent, as of October),” Bastian said. Under Employer of Choice, four work groups are responsible for professional and career development, education and competency, recruitment and retention, and parking. Professional/Career Development—Current areas of focus are to research the best practice, extend the GED program to other areas and disciplines of the hospital; enhance the certification program; create career advancement templates; and tailor the evaluation process to develop employee weaknesses.  Education/Competency—Current areas of focus are to streamline the orientation process, pilot with students and contract employees an online orientation module, use standardized forms for competency reviews to be tracked on CATTs, and enhance policies and procedures relating to education and competency. Recruitment/Retention—Current areas of focus are to look at best practices for recognition programs and to review current practices, to look at incentive programs, employee perks and discounts, review benefits, survey employees and implement a new employee survey, and enhance recruitment.  Parking—Increase communication regarding parking management, review parking management policies and procedures (make recommendations to parking management committee), review options for potential financial subsidy, and develop a survey tool for 2005. Bastian said that the Employer of Choice initiatives include the completion of a magnet questionnaire, continuation of ongoing salary surveys, elimination of double deducting insurance premiums, enhancement of the work-only weekends program, implementation of the new employee survey, use of the tuition assistance program, enhance-ment of the certification program, use of a bar scanner to track large training sessions, and checklist standardized nursing skills. Get Well Network Dave Bennett of the Business Development and Marketing office announced that the Medical Center is in the process of creating a patient bedside network. “Out patients will have access to a bunch of network-based services, everything from premium movies, the Internet, patient education materials and other things that we can push to them,” Bennett said, “This was an issue that was started just recently, back in March. Fortunately, had it not been for the interest of administrators and several other key stakeholders, we actually fast-tracked this.” The Get Well Network has been around since 1999. He said that the institutions that have used it are impressed. Key features of the Get Well Network: Bedside access to hospital sponsored (video and text based) educational materials focused on specific health conditions; Ability to deliver personalized patient education on demand; Interactive patient satisfaction surveys; Ability to analyze real-time patient satisfaction scores; Ability for staff to review instant feedback and comments from current patients and provide service recovery; Monitor operational workflow including discharge and transport procedures; Monitor patients’ pain management online; Bed Flow- Automated discharge, transport and cleaning prompts, staff monitoring; Access to premium services such as Internet Access and Pay-per view entertainment services; Web-based administration tools providing dynamic content management, system monitoring, real-time reporting, and off-site ‘prescribing’ of content to the patient bedside. In the area of entertainment, the network offers movies, Internet, e-mail, games and music.  It offers to the patient customized information including information about that patient’s health and wellness, information about a doctor, health educational videos, real time education documentation, patient satisfaction, and realtime services.     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.