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Currents To Medical Center Employees: At the Feb. 15 communications meeting Lisa Montgomery, MUSC vice president for finance and administration and Medical Center CFO, and John Cooper, director of finance, updated the management team on our current financial status and the fiscal year 05/06 budget preparation timeline. It is important that everyone generally understand our financial process as we seek to develop a “cost conscious culture” and achieve targets necessary for funding the Phase I hospital facility. For this fiscal year, we budgeted for an $18.5 million operating margin.  We projected a mid-year margin of $9.25 million through December 2004. Our actual margin was a favorable $10.9 million. To date our financial performance has been very encouraging. We are now kicking off the budgetary planning process for fiscal year 05/06. The Finance Department is developing the budgetary assumptions and compiling the personnel master file at this time. Directors, managers and business officers will receive their departmental budgets on or around March 1 and will have a month to attend training sessions and develop their respective budgets. Additional information regarding the budget timeline is indicated in this newsletter. We need the full cooperation of the entire management team and all business officers to ensure we produce a well planned and timely budget.  I wish to thank everyone for a job well done with our financial performance so far this year.  Sincerely,  W. Stuart Smith Vice President for Clinical Operations and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center Training on CATTS due by April 1 Kelly Shaw of the Compliance Office announced that compliance training on CATTS is due by April 1 for all existing employees. New hires as of June 28 until the end of this training year are not required to do the CATTS online because they received their training in the live sessions as part of their orientation.  The three CATTS modules for compliance are the general compliance training, HIPAA training and there’s a session entitled “2004-2005 Billing.” Also a reminder that Beth Bair in the Compliance Office will start sending out reports the end of February the first of March to let you know if you have any employees who have not received their training. Sharon Knowles announced the addition of a mandatory module to CATTS, called “Information Security.” “It’s for every single person in the Medical Center. If you are living and breathing oxygen you must complete the training by April 1. On April 1, we’ll start sending out reports about people who don’t have it completed. “If you have any questions, give me a call.” Press-Ganey Survey Roll-Out Ambulatory Care administrator Dave Neff announced that Ambulatory Care will be rolling out the Press-Ganey Patient Satisfaction Program. “In fact we started last week in sending the surveys out on a random basis to patients who attend some of our clinics.” He said that the new patient satisfaction program will allow them to know how well schedulers are doing in arranging for the patients’ clinic appointments; how well administration people are doing in meeting and greeting patients and their families and the patients’ perspective on the quality of care provided by the nursing staff and physician who treats them. “We’re real excited about it. Press-Ganey is one of the largest Patient Satisfaction program companies in the United States,” Neff said. “They have a good many academic medical centers and do a good bit of work in Ambulatory Care Centers. So this will allow us to benchmark our services against peer institutions and provide us with the means to identify areas where we can improve.” Employer of Choice Update Medical Center Human Resources director Helena Bastian, focused on work by the Recruitment and Retention workgroup. Completed tasks are:  Proposed PTO revisions effective Feb. 8 Tuition Assistance program service commitment requirements modified New employee survey (November 2004 through January 2005). The new employee survey results received a 33.5 percent response rate in November, 57 percent in December and 48.3 percent in January. Overall, new employees are satisfied with their employment at the Medical Center.  They did, however, identify six areas on which to focus: Continuing education opportunities Unit staffing levels Benefits and compensation Communication and collaboration between departments/units Communication and collaboration between staff and physicians Career growth opportunities. Bastian discussed Recruitment and Retention Tips for Employees.  Suggestions are: Welcome new hires to the unit/department Be supportive in orienting new hires Managers follow up with new hires and be engaged in the orientation process Managers, staff and physicians, remember that “good communication is a major factor in satisfied employees”  Co-workers are customers; treat each other with respect. Bastian also discussed current initiatives being worked on by the Recruitment and Retention Committee. Among them are: Recognition Program—Revamp the Applause Program Identify additional recognition opportunities Hospital Week activities Employee perks, discounts Benefits review Employee survey (ongoing) Ongoing compensation analysis: to include a market analysis by job classification, review of holiday shift differential, certification bonus, ongoing analysis of pay plan and a “double bonus” referral program. Other initiatives: Pilot LPN Bridge Program developed on 6E and extended to other units Secondary employment opportun-ities available Developed “Nurse Your Career Symposium” for junior and senior high school students with an interest in nursing  Increased nurse recruiter travel to job fairs Developed health care mentoring program in collaboration with SCHA and Charleston County schools Web site partnerships Digital recruitment materials developed Recruitment postcards developed for mail outs Benefit summary sheet for mail outs under development Benefit calculator under development Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Timeline February  Build FY 2005 Projected Actual Define FY 2006 Budget Assumptions Download Personnel Master File March Hold two training sessions, H271 Main Hospital: Tuesday, March 1, 11 a.m., 3 p.m.; Thursday, March 3, 11 a.m., 3 p.m. Departmental budget development begins (March 1) Departmental budget development ends (Mar. 31) April Initial budget presented to Administration Additional adjustments made as necessary Final budget presented to administration May MUHA budget incorporated with MUSC budget 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.