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Currents To Medical Center Employees: On Aug. 16 and 17 our management team, including nearly all Medical Center supervisors with responsibility for hiring and evaluation, will take part in our third MUSC Excellence Leadership Development Institute (LDI). The LDIs are designed to train managers to be better leaders. At our upcoming LDI, Quint Studer, CEO of The Studer Group, will be our keynote speaker. Among other things, he will discuss “reducing variance with evidence based leadership.” We will also have presentations from our team leaders and others on our leadership evaluation plan (goals related), standards (behavioral expectations), service recovery and our AIDET (key words at key times) implementation plan. We will be communicating the details of our LDI through various mechanisms including this newsletter, our Web site(s), departmental meetings, communication boards, routine rounding by managers and future town hall meetings. We are six months into our MUSC Excellence initiative and we are beginning to see some positive results. We will continue to have assistance from our Studer Group coaches for the next 2-1/2 years. Our plan is to have an array of best practices “hardwired” so that our progress will be sustained over time. The ultimate goal is to make the MUSC Medical Center a great place to work, a great place for patient care and a great place for physicians to practice medicine and teach. On another matter, everyone needs to be prepared to demonstrate knowledge of JCAHO standards that apply to your job and area of responsibility. We anticipate at any time we will have an unannounced JCAHO survey.  Among other things, we need to be familiar with the mechanisms implemented to fulfill the JCAHO’s six National Patient Safety Goals. The 2006 National Patient Safety Goals included “hand off communication” under its goal to “improve the effectiveness of communication by caregivers”. The JCAHO has attributed poor communication to over 50 percent of reported sentinel events. A hand-off is defined as a real time interactive process of passing information from one person (or team) to another for the purpose of ensuring continuity and safety of a patient’s care. The primary objective of a good hand-off is to provide accurate, up-to-date information to the next provider.  At MUSC we have put in place several interventions that allow for standardization of the hand-off process. These include: Nursing Transfer Form(s); Shift Report Recipe Cards (Nurses/CAs); a standardized communication model for physicians, advanced practice  nurses and physicians assistants was implemented; and SBAR (known as Situational Briefing Model) for all staff except advanced practice nurses and physicians assistants. For information concerning the National Patient Safety Goals refer to the Medical Center intranet or contact your manager or unit educator. Thank you very much for your support. W. Stuart Smith Vice President for Clinical Operations and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center Employee Advantage Program available Barry Hainer, M.D. shared details about the Department of Family Medicine’s Employee Advantage Program.   Since 2002, Family Medicine has offered same-day, call-in or walk-in services to patients and discovered that they liked this feature.  Family Medicine’s Employee Advantage Program expands this offering to all University and Medical Center employees. The program provides employees with a time-saving option to wait in the comfort of their  workplace  prior to their same-day appointment. Employees may call 792-3451 (weekdays between 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.), to register and schedule a same-day appointment. Patient information is gathered via the phone and a call center operator contacts the employee with a same-day appointment time. Once an employee-patient arrives at a Family Medicine location, he/she provides their name to registration personnel and is escorted directly to an exam room. An employee need not be a pre-existing Family Medicine patient to participate in the Employee Advantage program. According to Hainer, the program is designed as a win-win for employee- patients to receive prompt, quality medical care. Family Medicine also supports urgent care visits for employees with minimal wait times at their locations. They can also help arrange for follow up and continuing care on a scheduled basis. EOC Smart Al Nesmith, Medical Center Safety, Security and Volunteer Services director, reviewed Environment of Care (EOC) Smarts specifically with Fire Safety and Emergency Management.   He reminded managers that employees should be aware of the MUSC Five-Step Fire plan (remove patients/injured from area; ensure all doors are closed; activate fire alarm system [red box pull stations are near all exits]; call 792-3333 or 911 [if located at a remote site] for help; and try to fight the fire), which is located on the back of employee’s badges, MUSC OSHP Safety manual or supervisor’s files.      It is mandatory that units maintain unit-specific fire plan procedures  for safe evacuation and relocation of patients. (The template is located in the manager's tool box under 'Fire unit-specific fire plan form.' Completed unit-specific fire plans are maintained by the manager and OSHP Office. Contact Joe Avant, 792-3604, to prepare a unit-specific fire plan).      Additionally, units may only store a maximum of 12 green oxygen “e” cylinder containers which must be kept separate (empty vs. full) and secured. Safety is also evaluating ways to help mark and identify fire and smoke-rated doors.   MUSC is considered a “defend in place” facility because of the hospital’s construction design accommodates sprinklers, detection systems and fire/smoke compartments to contain and minimize the spread of fire.   Other EOC Smart ideas reviewed: employees are required to wear their ID badge at all times; an employee, faculty member, student or volunteer reporting for work in the Medical Center without an official ID badge must obtain a temporary badge from the security desk within the facility; in-patient visitors must obtain and possess a 24-hour visitor pass while in the Medical Center; patient confidentiality is the responsibility of everyone including students, faculty, residents, nurse managers and employees; and news media requests for photographs and videos will be referred to the Office of Public Relations, 792-2626 or 792-3621.   Nesmith reminded managers that if the regular telephone system is down during a weather emergency or disaster situation, departments will communicate using system fail phones (SFP), Simon paging, use of runners or disaster radio equipment. SFPs operate using a separate telephone extension listing (organized by department or unit) and is posted on each SFP unit. (Note: There are no SFP in Ambulatory Care areas). Users can find the SFP directory via the MUSC intranet at http://www.musc.edu/medcenter/staffToolbox/index.htm Click to useful link/phones/failure (requires an MNA account). To dial from SFP to  SFP, callers must use the 953 prefix or dial 3 and the last four digits of the telephone number Financial Update Ralph Greene, Hospital Fiscal Services, reviewed MUHA’s unaudited, interim financial statements at the end of the 12-month period comparing  fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006. MUHA (which includes Charleston Memorial Hospital, the newly constructed Central Energy Plant and Phase 1 New Hospital) finished the 12-month period of FY 2006 with a positive $28.8 million change in net assets.   At the second MUSC Excellence Leadership Development Institute (LDI) meeting, pillar goals for Finance were discussed, one of which is an operating margin of 5 percent. The operating margin at June 2006 is 4.1 percent as compared to 3.6 percent in June 2005.    Greene was pleased to report that MUHA is currently moving towards its financial goal and other goals that will help maintain plans as the new hospital construction continues. Education Roll-out Laurie Zone-Smith reviewed highlights from the Aug. 3 meeting. The agenda featured multiple items including BLS awareness with presenter Sheila Scarbrough; review of education and training for new products Triple Lumen Power PICC and Antibiotic Impregnated PICC presented by Brad Kilpatrick; plus review of JCAHO tips and related information. Database validation relating to the effectiveness of information dissemination by the Education Roll-out committee is being evaluated. The next meeting will take place Aug. 24. Announcements Sheila Scarborough was named to a new role as critical intervention manager for the Medical Center effective July 31. Scarborough will assist and train with medical emergency and rapid response teams, assist in simulation activities and collaborate with staffs to improve patient care. Claire Hoeffer reminded department managers about the third LDI meeting Aug 16-17, North Charleston Convention Center. The program will feature Hardwiring Excellence founder Quint Studer. The meeting’s theme is sports and all participants are encouraged to dress to support this by wearing sports jerseys. Participants are also reminded to bring their AIDET workbook. Bruce Cross was named manager of financial services, Insitute of Psychiatry, replacing Peggy Thompson. Cross is a graduate of the College of Health Professions’ Masters in Health Administration program. Pam Marek, Decision Support Services, was honored by Lisa Montgomery, vice president for Finance and Administration, with a certificate award by University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) of the Solucent operational database. Marek is the resident expert and trainer for the system. Montgomery read a letter by UHC vice president Roberta Graham honoring Marek’s work, excellence, and overall commitment to UHC and its process. There will be no Communications Meeting on Aug. 15 due to the LDI III training.   Friday, Aug. 11, 2006 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 catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.