To Medical Center Employees

At the Nov. 1 management communications meeting, Nicole Bernier, service excellence manager, Ambulatory Care, and Tammy Rapp, healthcare recruiter, Human Resources, gave an update on the Employer of Choice Service Excellence Team. They discussed a number of initiatives taken by the team to make the MUSC medical center a great place to work. One of the interesting tactics discussed is the "Helping Hand Sticker" placed on the identification badge clip for new hires. The intent is to identify new hires and involve everyone in helping and supporting new hires as they get acclimated. The stickers should be removed at the quarterly new hire reception or during the 90-day new hire rounding sessions by managers. A number of best practices led by the Employer of Choice team are explained in this newsletter.

We kicked off our MUSC Excellence team driven organizational structure over six years ago. The team structure includes: a number of Service Excellence Teams (listed below); Leadership Evaluation Team for the formulation of medical center organizational goals and oversight of the leader evaluation system; and Leadership Development Team for education and training.

In addition our annual MUSC Excellence Work Plan involves teams to address opportunities for improvement such as: discharge process; discharge phone calls; first impressions; AIDET refreshers; nurse leader rounding; beside shift report; patient transportation; rounding on employees; and other teams. I want to thank all present and past team leaders and members for your outstanding work.

On another matter, Drs. Kim Davis and John Kratz gave an update on work under way for Ambulatory Care's electronic medical records system referred to as "Epic," which will replace Practice Partner. Five pilot clinics will kick off with the new system on March 22, 2012, and plans are for implementation in all other clinics on May 17. While implementation will be challenging, ultimately the system will greatly improve service and communication. Additional details are in this newsletter.

MUSC Service Excellence Teams
Communication; Employer of Choice; Measurement; Standards; Reward & Recognition; and area-specific Patient Satisfaction teams including: Women's (Perinatal), Children, Therapeutic Services, Transplant Services, Laboratory Services, Adult ED, Peds ED, Adult Inpatient, IOP Inpatient/Outpatient, Outpatient Clinics, Outpatient Radiology, ART, Ambulatory Surgery, Main OR, ART OR, and other unit-specific teams as needed. Departments throughout the medical center such as Dietetic Services and Environmental Services integrate MUSC Excellence best practices into their day-to-day operations.

W. Stuart Smith
Vice President for Clinical Operations
and Executive Director, MUSC Medical Center

People–Fostering employee pride and loyalty

Wins

* MUSC Medical Center was recognized by the Studer Group in the What's Right in Health Care Conference, Oct. 19-21 in Chicago. The award recognizes MUSC Excellence scores in the last public report for HCAHPS' communication with nurses for 500-bed hospitals and higher. MUSC achieved the above 90th percentile in this category and recognizes them on a national level.

* Lana Beckley, R.N., FIRM Ground Resource Nurse, applauded the hospital units and nurse managers who were recipients of the With Out One Fall (WOOF) Award. Areas recognized were:1 West Peds-Julie Heckman; 2 JRU-Linda McDonald (now Sandra Fox, interim manager); 5 Labor and Delivery-Karen Stephenson; MICU-Janet Byrne; NSICU-Cheryl Holderfield; PACU-Ava Goodhue; ART 4CTICU-Dawn Taylor; ART 3MSICU-Chris Zensen; 7C CH-Melinda Biller; PICU CH-Melinda Biller; and 8D CH-Kim Montgomery.

* American Lung Association's Fight for Air Run/Walk event on Oct. 29 recognized an MUSC Respiratory Care team composed of respiratory therapists. The team, which was recognized with the most participants, raised more than $3,000 in donations to support this year's event.

TUW Campaig
Whitney McLuen, Office of Development and Meghan Clark, Trident United Way (TUW), spoke about this year's campaign. Kick-off was held Sept. 9 with Day of Caring activities and featured more than 300 MUSC employees participating in volunteer activities across the Tri-county. The 2011 campaign goal is $200,000 guided by campaign chair Lisa Saladin, Ph.D., College of Health Professions dean and leadership chair Terry Day, M.D., Department of ENT, Head and Neck Surgery. Gifts can be designated to TUW or any 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, as well as funds within the MUSC Foundation. Gifts can be made via payroll deduction, check or credit card. To donate, visit the musc.edu web page and click on the TUW logo.

HR update
Kim Duncan, MUHA HRIS manager, presented the following topics:
* Pay for Performance Increase - This will be reflected in Nov. 2 paycheck.
* Mandatory CATTS Lessons - All mandatory lessons are due Dec. 1; refer to HR Policy #5 (Competency, Assessment and Maintenance, Section C, #2); SuccessFactors (Job Competencies Section)-The job competencies section is not included in the overall score. If an employee receives a rating of "does not meet requirements" in this section, he/she will not be eligible for a performance increase for the year, maintain timely completion of job competencies including, but not limited to, organizational mandatory and job/population-specific competencies. Department reports are available in CATTS. Contact Latonia Allen, 792-2805; Effective 2012, the due date for CATTS Mandatory Lessons will be aligned with MUHA's universal performance review period (July-June 30); Transition requires that employees complete their 2012 lessons by June 30, 2012; Contact, Helena Bastian, bastianh@musc.edu or 792-5098
* PTO Conversion to ESL - This is available in December; Eligible employees may convert up to 40 hours of accrued PTO to ESL provided a balance of 120 hours of PTO remains; Eligible employees must submit an online request form (via MyRecords and available Nov. 14) to payroll by Nov. 29.
* Online Retirement Statements - SCRS (pension plan only) participants can go online to view their last quarterly statement, service time and listed beneficiaries. To register for this access, participants need to know their SCRS account balance on a specific date in order to set up a user name and password. Should employee need assistance in obtaining his/her account balance, contact Cindy Locklair, locklair@musc.edu. As a security measure, include your full name, SSN and birth date in this e-mail request. The benefits manager will be sending out an e-mail to current participants with more details; Visit the SCRS web site, http://www.retirement.sc.gov/.
* Quarterly new hire reception is scheduled for 1 p.m., Dec. 8, Gazes Auditorium; Event honors employees hired since last quarter (July to September) who have completed 90 days of service; a "save the date" will be e-mailed to new hires, managers and administrators.

Wellness Update
Susan Johnson, Ph.D., Employee Wellness Program coordinator, spoke to managers about new plans for her to address managers monthly at this meeting to promote upcoming health and wellness activities. She also reminded managers that November is designated as holistic wellness month and reviewed events planned about this topic for lunch and learn sessions and Wellness Wednesdays throughout the month. On Nov. 29, a holistic wellness fair is scheduled from 11 a.m. to1 p.m. in the Horseshoe.

Quality–Providing quality patient care in a safe environment

Nicole Bernier, and Tammy Rapp, MUHA co-chairs of MUHA's Employer of Choice Team, introduced and reviewed initiatives with this program:
* Helping hand stickers on employee badge clips to identify new employees and promote interaction.
* Dec. 8 Quarterly New Hire Reception -- All managers and their new employees are invited to attend; refreshments and prizes will be offered.
* Quarterly tenured employee awards - Recognized Valerie Bailey, unit secretary (36 years service), PreOp Clinic and Mary Beth Crummer, 4E Nurse Manager, Cardiothoracic Surgery Acute Care (23 years service).
* Broadcast survey for employee input about National Hospital Week 2011 (May 6-11)
* Other: new hire postcards; 30/90 day rounding notifications; and publish benefits of the month.
* Best practice recommendations-new and current employees.
* Read the quarterly Employer of Choice newsletter available via the MUHA intranet under newsletters--EOC

Ambulatory EMR update
Dave Northrup, director of clinical systems, OCIO, Kim Davis, M.D., and John Kratz, M.D., co-chairs of the Epic Ambulatory EMR Implementation Oversight Committee, introduced details about the new Epic system that will be replacing Practice Partner in May 2012. The plan is to go-live on March 17 at five pilot sites: University Internal Medicine, Pediatric Cardiology, Carolina Family Care practice (Two Island Court, Mount Pleasant), Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and East Cooper OB/GYN. All other areas will go live by May 17.

In addition to replacing Practice Partner, there will be some new functionality, the Epic system will include a patient portal (MyChart), physicians will input their charges and orders will be entered with auto-interfaces to the lab and radiology systems. Physicians and nurses will chart on the same record; The Epic Ambulatory project will make a big impact on clinical workflow resulting in a slow down during the first month. Meds, allergies and the patient problem list will not be copied from Practice Partner into Epic, so plans are being made to enter this information prior to patient visits (i.e. abstracting). Patients will receive a copy of their information as they leave the clinic. The group will provide periodic updates about the new system in future presentations. Visit http://epic.musc.edu (NetID required if off campus).

Announcements
Clinical Recyle Day is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Nov. 15 at the Horseshoe and portico. The effort is educate employees about recycled items and to reduce waste reduction especially in clinical areas. Visit http://www.musc.edu/gogreen.

The Communications Call Center will be relocating to ART beginning at 7 a.m., Nov. 5. The new location is on the mezzanine level, Suite M105. Call center telephone numbers for operators and department services will remain unchanged.

The next meeting is Nov. 15.