CurrentsTo Medical Center Employees:At the March 22 communications meeting Maria Moore, director of the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) Member Advocate Program, updated the management team on information and services provided by UHC. The UHC consists of 91 member hospitals. The MUSC Medical Center became a UHC member in the late 1990s. UHC offers a wide range of services and support to its members. Four major service categories include: management information tools; improvement and effectiveness; strategy and enterprise management; and supply chain optimization. The Medical Center currently participates in a number of programs and benchmarking projects, as indicated below, that fall under these four major service categories. The UHC also offers members the opportunity to designate individuals to serve on a variety of councils. We are currently represented on the councils listed below. More than 20,000 publications are included on UHC’s Web site. Most recently a new section on frequently asked questions (FAQs) has been added to the Web site. All Medical Center employees can access the UHC Web site with a password. To obtain a password log on to http://www.uhc.edu and a password can be requested (see the left navigation bar). Anyone with questions may contact Maria Moore at http://www.moore@uhc.edu. Our UHC membership has served us well. I encourage Medical Center employees to take advantage of the valuable services and the wealth of information made available through our UHC membership. Thank you very much.
New garage to boost employee parkingUniversity Parking Management director Melinda Anderson gave an update on the new Ashley-Rutledge Parking Garage now under construction and what it means for employee parking.She said the new garage will end up adding about 645 spaces, designated for primarily patient and visitor parking, about 10 percent of which will be reserved for handicapped patrons. “I say ‘about’ 645 spaces because we won’t know for sure until it is striped and I count them,” Anderson said. “It will be connected to the Storm Eye Institute and a mid-block crosswalk will be installed. The crosswalk will include a speed hump to slow traffic on that area of Ashley Avenue. “We’ve been working on that for about 10 years and it will be included in this project,” she said to the applause of the audience. ”That’s one of the few times I’ve gotten applause.” The garage will have eight floors, covering a difficult footprint to work with. “We believe we will have a garage that is well lighted and easy to use.” She added that the surface lot next to the parking garage is being renovated to accommodate larger vehicles such as specially equipped vans that may not fit in the garage. Landscaping along Ashley Avenue will include raised planters to accommodate the occasional flooding on Ashley, and because of flooding the garage will include an entrance and exit on both the Rutledge and Ashley avenues side. Anderson said that the opening of the garage, expected in May, will make several hundred Rutledge Avenue garage spaces available for employees. She said that after-hours employees who are currently using Parking Garage 2 will be shifted to the new Ashley-Rutledge Parking Garage, allowing them covered access to the hospital by the elevated crosswalk over Ashley. Spaces in the Rutledge Avenue garage will allocated by open enrollment based on the employee’s institutional hire date. The open enrollment period will be done electronically throughout the month of April. Lisa Montgomery, Medical Center vice president for finance and administration, said that Parking Management and Public Safety are taking steps to eliminate the unauthorized use of G-Lot by university and Medical Center students and employees. Anderson said that an officer stationed at the entrance to G-Lot has counted as many as 30 to 40 turnarounds a day as a result of ensuring G-Lot’s availability for patients and patient visitors. Since the crack-down, the flow of arrivals and departures from the lot has improved and the “full” sign has not been lighted as often. Also discussed were the unauthorized use of departmental parking validation stamps by employees and the practice of claiming the reduced rate available for patient families. Both practices can result in disciplinary action including the termination of employment. Human Resources
Tactical Plan—Provider of Choice
The group began by developing a list of issues that serves as challenges or obstacles to a satisfactory patient experience. In recent months they have begun to develop ideas for potential intervention or resolution of the challenges and obstacles they identified. Issues were divided into broad categories: exterior wayfinding/access,
interior wayfinding/access, wait times for
Identified needs include: signage within buildings in English/Spanish, greeters and transport services available at all entrances, preventive maintenance for wheelchairs/stretchers used to transport patients, and services to assist out-of-town patients in coordinating multiple outpatient services on the same day. On many of these issues, the group members will be working with other
individuals and entities within the Medical Center to develop solutions.
UHC Programs and Benchmarking Projects
Improvement and Effectiveness
Strategy and Enterprise Management
Supply Chain Optimization
UHC Councils
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