To Medical Center Employees

A series of medical center town hall meetings are scheduled to take place from Jan. 25 through Feb. 8 at the times and locations listed below. There will also be some department-based town hall sessions not included in the schedule below.

Years ago the medical center leadership team made a commitment to thoroughly communicate through a variety of methods, and our town hall meetings serve as one of our communication tools. Approximately 1,175 individuals attended the town hall meetings conducted in September 2011. Our goal has been to increase attendance significantly, and we have sought to do this through using a 30-minute format, including questions and answers, and by scheduling department-based town hall meetings to the extent practical. Everyone's attendance is encouraged.

The upcoming town hall agenda will include: medical center goals update; recognition of exceptional accomplishments; Employee Partnership & Culture of Safety update; key components of the clinical enterprise strategic plan; and "key words" for the Tobacco-Free Campus policy implementation.

On another matter, Dr. Patrick Cawley, executive medical director, recently announced that due to the lack of influenza activity across the state and the Tri-county area, the requirement that non-influenza vaccinated staff wear masks while on duty beginning Jan. 1 is being delayed. We will continue to monitor activity and provide notification of the date to begin the mask requirement.

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

Town Hall Meeting Schedule
Jan. 25: 10 a.m., 2 West Amphitheater, and noon, Storm Eye Institute Auditorium; Jan. 26: 7:30 a.m., 2 West Amphitheater, and noon, Ashley River Tower Auditorium; Jan. 27: 11 a.m. and noon, 2 West Amphitheater; Jan. 30: 11 a.m., Hollings Cancer Center Auditorium; Jan. 31: 7:30 a.m., Ashley River Tower Auditorium, and noon, Institute of Psychiatry Auditorium; Feb. 1: noon, Storm Eye Institute Auditorium, and 3 p.m., Ashley River Tower Auditorium; Feb. 2: 7:30 a.m. and noon, 2 West Amphitheater; Feb. 6: 11 a.m., 2 West Amphitheater; Feb. 7: 10 a.m., 2 West Amphitheater; and Feb. 8: noon, 2 West Amphitheater

People–Fostering employee pride and loyalty

HR update
Mark Stimpson, MUHA Benefits manager, presented the following:

• Supplemental retirement plans — Effective Jan. 1, the IRS has increased the annual contribution limits to MUSC's supplemental retirement plans from $16,500 to $17,000; traditional 401K, Roth 401K and 403B plans share an annual contribution limit of $17,000; the 457 plan has its own separate annual contribution limit of $17,000; participants older than or who turn 50 in 2012 may contribute an additional $5,500 to the 457 and/or one or a combination of the other three plans; employees, 50 years and older, can potentially contribute $45,000 to a combination of these plans, in addition to the 6.5 percent contributed to the South Carolina Retirement System.
• Retirement open enrollment — The open enrollment period for all state optional Retirement Program (State ORP) participants will run from Jan. 1 through March.
  

During open enrollment, State ORP participants may change investment providers or, if eligible, may irrevocably elect to join the SC Retirement Systems (SCRS). Any changes made during the open enrollment period is not effective until April 1; any State ORP participant who wishes to change to one of the other three approved investment providers should complete and submit to the HR office a State ORP Notice of Termination or Change (Form 1162) along with the enrollment form for that company (i.e. Met Life, TIAA-Cref, Hartford or VALIC); changing from the ORP to State pension plan: State ORP participants are eligible to switch to SCRS (pension plan) during the 2012 Open Enrollment period if at any point during the open enrollment period they have a minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 60 months of participation from their initial enrollment in the State ORP (initial enrollment between Jan. 1, 2007 and March 1, 2011); any State ORP participant who decides to irrevocably join SCRS must complete and submit to the HR office the following two forms: Retirement Plan Enrollment (Form 1100) and a Beneficiary Designation (Form 1102); these forms, plus an explanatory guide and video are available on the SC Retirement System website, http://retirement.sc.gov/newhires.

For information, contact Stimpson at 792-9320 or Cindy Locklair at792-0826.

PEACH form update
Pam Marek, Decision Support Services manager, spoke about an extension to the existing Planning, Establishing and Activating Clinical Housing (PEACH) form that is used for inpatient transfers.

The outpatient (OP) PEACH form was devised to respond to requests from hospital-based, hospital facility-based off campus and outpatient procedure/ancillary areas (clinical service lines) throughout the hospital. The online form will be available via the MUHA intranet to users with a NetID and password. Input from managers, administrators, coordinators, supervisors and business managers was involved in creating this form. OP PEACH will be supported by Mango, the new management directory. The form is scheduled to go live Feb. 1 and is currently going through testing in different areas. To be added to the OP PEACH notification or for more information, contact 792-8793 or email marekp@musc.edu.

Emergency training opportunities
Brian Fletcher, R.N., clinical disaster preparedness coordinator, spoke about upcoming training opportunities in a variety of health care disaster preparedness topics available at the Noble Training Center in Anniston, Ala. All training, transportation, meals and lodging for this program is free. A HazMat for HealthCare training is scheduled for Feb. 10-11, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and March 10 - 11. For information, contact Fletcher, 792-7752 or fletche@musc.edu.

Service — Serving the public with compassion, respect and excellence
Brittni Carnes, a speech pathologist and co-chair with Therapeutic Services' patient satisfaction team, presented details of her team's efforts representing occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT) and speech therapy (ST). The group is looking for a unified location (Leeds Avenue) to provide its services. They also are in the process of streamlining inpatient documentation to improve charting. A pilot with inpatient speech pathology was recently completed and will soon involve outpatient speech pathology, OT and PT groups. The group is considering piloting iPad use as part of the streamlining process. Among the group's successes include progress with the 5+5 savings plan which decreased hospital re-admissions due to aspiration pneumonia (by 42 percent) and provided a cost savings of $1.65 million; progress with the modified barium swallow impairment profile online database supports data collection with more than 1,000 speech language pathologists; and Therapeutic Services' patient satisfaction scores show moderate increase in PT, OT and ST.

Facilities website update
Dennis Frazier, Facilities and Capitol Improvement administrator and Greg Weigle, director of construction and design, gave a presentation about available services provided by their department. Frasier's team has been working with the hospital's Nurse Manager Workload Steering Group regarding any facilities and maintenance work and improvements. Frazier explained that Facilities is divided into maintenance (zone maintenance and maintenance shops—boiler, electric HVAC and controls), construction and design (capital projects—planning, construction) and small projects (interior design, furniture, moves, equipment planning) and operations (maintenance call center, code compliance and document management). As for Facilities services milestones, ART's opening in 2008 marked the first time MUHA had its own maintenance staff. The group also opened its facilities support call center line, 792-5600. By the first year total maintenance work orders increased by 24,628 (163 percent) call center volumes reached 67,794 total calls and more than 400 work requests were submitted and processed. Weigle spoke about user-friendly revisions to the web site available via the MUHA intranet. He reminded managers to use the 792-5600 for emergencies. Weigle said the website should be used as a tool and resource for managers and staff. Visit their web page via the MUHA intranet.

Project request update
Dan Furlong, OCIO, updated managers about the OCIO clinical project request system. This supports OCIO projects requiring two or more hours of work. Furlong reviewed the project request process available on the Project Management Office web page. Staff also can check on the status of a current project, review a list of completed projects and read frequently asked questions. The project request system is found via the MUHA intranet (forms toolbox).

Announcements
The next meeting is Jan. 24.