2013 to 2014

As 2013 comes to a close, I’d like to thank each and every member of the MPMC family for their commitment to providing the highest quality patient-centered health care possible. This year has marked many advancements for the MPMC team and has made us stronger as we continue to grow. As we look forward to a new year and the progress that awaits, I want to provide you an update on some important initiatives on which we have been working. · Dr. Rebecca Wiebe of Surgical Specialists of Colorado will begin seeing patients at Middle Park Surgical Center four days a week on February 7. The goal is to increase days through 2014 to increase the availability of surgery in Grand County. · We are working to secure an interim human resources director and hope to have that person in place in January while we continue to recruit a full-time director. · Our new health information management manager will join us January 6. This should give us a good position to be more proactive in our charting and auditing of patient records as well as better position us for the ICD-10 crossover next year. · As our new Director of Marketing and Public Relations, Michelle Balleck, gets acclimated with the MPMC family, she will be meeting with directors and managers to develop a comprehensive communication plan for our organization. Please look forward to increased communication within and outside of MPMC. · Our Service Excellence Initiative is proceeding well. Currently we are focusing on the patient experience and how it is impacted by quietness and cleanliness. Trainings for staff will begin in 2014, and we look forward to the improvements to patient care we can all strive to achieve. · Chief Financial Officer Brendan Gale, along with others from the organization, will be having a budget meeting in January to finalize a revised budget for 2014. · Brendan and his team are working to standardize the revenue cycle and resolve reimbursement concerns. This is one of our primary goals for 2014 as we strive to improve cash flow and our billing processes. I am optimistic to enter a new year with many possibilities with all of the MPMC team. We have many opportunities in front of us to continue to grow the level of patient care we offer to all of Grand County! Happy New Year!

Congratulations!

Service Excellence Initiative

 

 

Middle Park Medical Center strives to provide world-class Service Excellence to

continuously improve the patient experience, employee satisfaction and physician
engagement at our facilities. We have launched our Service Excellence Initiative,
which will be implemented throughout the MPMC family during the next three years.

The Service Excellence Initiative will enhance the experience for our patients, their
families and our community, as well as ourselves, and will move Middle Park Medical
Center forward in becoming the health care provider and employer of choice in
Northwest Colorado.

As part of this project, we have selected the following leaders within our

organization to lead the first phase of implementation. The Service Excellence Council
will provide leadership and communication to the Service Excellence Initiative. The
Service Excellence Advisors will lead Service Excellence Initiative workshops for the
entire MPMC staff and guide us through implementation of customer service
improvement projects.
 

Service Excellence Council

David Solawetz, RN, CQO, Chair

Janet Peters, Program Director
Carmen Covington, CNO
Zane Gray
Miranda Marsh
Bridget Newman
Bethanie Reynolds
Jeanine Shunk
Jason Stuerman, MD
Theresa Vague

Service Excellence Advisors
Jean Anderson
Alexis Bates
Amanda Haight
Jeff Hoffman
Mary Meeks
Holly Peck
Evaldas Pilkis
Chris Porter
Daniele Porter
Marjorie Pfeffer
Chris Trimmer
Darren Zunno

Please look forward to further information as we progress with the Service

Excellence Initiative into 2014! This initiative will enable us to reach higher levels of
customer and employee experience. Your commitment to MPMC and patient
satisfaction is paramount to make this initiative successful!

Old acquaintances...

As we move toward a stronger relationship with Centura here are some facts on them and what they have to offer. 

WHO – Centura Health is a joint venture between Adventist Health System a mid-west and southern hospital system with net revenues in excess of $6.5 Billion and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) a national hospital system that has net revenues in excess of $10.5 Billion, which puts them in the top 10 not-for-profit hospital systems in the country. Centura and Adventist/CHI are faith based organizations and all share the common mission of “promoting the healing ministry of Christ.”  Centura and Adventis/CHI work with a lot of affiliate hospitals, and while it is faith based, they do not require affiliated organizations to comply with are parts of their operating dogma.  Centura Health is the largest healthcare system in Colorado with net revenues exceeding $2.5 Billion, with hospital’s throughout the state and provide other healthcare services, including home health, nursing home care, and other ancillary services. http://www.centura.org/

 

WHY

·        Proximity to St. Anthony’s and St. Anthony’s Summit.

·        Well positioned geographically in the intermountain and front range to take advantage of population based medicine (See: Map of Centura CAH’s) and has a growing presence on the eastern side of the state with affiliate and owned hospitals in Western Kansas (http://www.centura.org/Workfiles/maps/CH-map-AllFacilities.pdf)

·        Annual per-capita spending on healthcare in the U.S. exceeds $8,233 per  person or $123,495,000 in Grand County alone. Total population in the Centura affiliate hospital counties exceed 150,000 with net healthcare expenditure in excess of $1.3 Billion. This doesn’t even include the tourism base that consumes another $100,000,000 in healthcare while vacationing in affiliate counties (Jackson, Grand, Summit, Alamosa, Chaffee, Clear Creek, Costilla, Fremont, Lincoln, and Park). Adjacent counties hold an additional 250,000 people.  Gaining a larger market share for MPMC in our area would be momentous. 

·        Centura 2020 mission to move upstream to help  http://www.centura.org/move-upstream-to-manage-health

·        Improved revenue cycle management (ICD-10, HIPPA compliance, value based purchasing, HCAPS)

·        Process efficiencies and economies of scale that would reduce costs  dramatically. 

• New agile leadership to respond quickly to the needs of MPMC

·        Expanded service lines (Surgical, inpatient, home health, nursing home, etc.)

     ·        Access to high end services like legal, consulting, marketing, accounting, etc.

·        Improved viability as we face Affordable Care Act, ICD-10, Value Based Purchasing and Pay for Performance, Elimination of CAH Payments, Patient Centered Medical Home, etc.

 

Stopping to smell the flowers.

Today marks my fourth month of your Chief Operating Officer.  I did not realize that fact until my awesome better half posted this on my facebook page...

When I interviewed for this position in June I sat down in front of 10 or so MPMC employees that shared with me the challenges, the hopes, the set-backs, the concerns and the anxiety.  The one thing that stood out the most was there was no sign of "laying down and giving up".  I knew right away I wanted this job because of the staff.

 

 

 

 

The Four Horsemen: State Survey, IT Crash, Life Safety, and Workforce Reduction.

Fast forward four months...

CEO Cole White has recently likened these past year to the four horsemen of the apocalypse with all of the challenges that we have faced.  However, the assessment of the staff that I had in my interview was correct.  You all have not lain down your swords, stopped fighting and  not feared any tribulation.  You all have fiercely fought to make sure that our patients were taken care of. 

The senior leadership team and the board of director's are very proud of you all.   

Sometimes we all have to take a moment to pause and gather the holistic picture of the entire organization.  Once you have done this and seen the entire organization working as a whole you can capture the beauty of the self-sacrifice to ensure our fellow human beings are being cared for with high quality.  This involves EVERY individual. 

This is an amazing process to experience and everyone should from time to time stop to smell the flowers. 

...Oh yeah...and I am having a blast thank you all for all you do!

Deaf and Dumb

 

We had a great senior leadership retreat on Wednesday of this week.  One of the things that we did as an ice breaker was to give a personal experience on how something or someone has affected us and our leadership style.  This was a very easy topic to pick for me because a day rarely goes by without me thinking of it.

I was born with a congenital sensorineural hearing loss; my hearing is classified as a profound loss.  Which is one step below deaf; I am 93% deaf in both ears.  This has definitely caused a lot of hurdles in my life.  However, I have been received well in all circles with understanding people.  Though, there is one teacher during my junior high and high school years that whole heartedly tried to undermine my every action. 

He called me deaf and therefore, dumb.  That comment has resonated through me my entire life.  I went on to graduate from high school, get my AAS in Radiology, BS in Kinesiology and I am ¾ done with my Master’s in Administration…some of my classmates have called me “4.0”.  While it seems like I am bragging (which I am somewhat) my point is that any obstacle and hurdle can be overcome if you have determination. 

In fact I have put determination as my personal vision, mission and description word.

In health care it always takes a healthy dose of determination (pun intended) to give quality care, excellent customer service, perform under duress, make changes needed to create the “employer of choice and provider of choice”. 

Thanks for all of your hard work this week!

Who signs your PTO slip?

In my last blog post I mentioned that Trudy and I would be discussing organizational clarity at the next managers meeting.  Organizational clarity has a lot of different pieces that are important in not only MPMC's hierarchy, but patient safety and care as well.  This is important from front line staff to the Board of Directors.

 

Advis, S., A. (2010) states that "when hierarchical differences exist between health care clinicians, communication problems may occur. Those individuals that exhibit intimidating behaviors may further hinder communication between health care clinicians, causing delays in patient care particularly if the organization’s chain of command fails to outline structured communication techniques and clinical practice guidelines to follow when disruptive behaviors are encountered. Disruptive behaviors of health care clinicians have been linked to adverse events."

 

This amplifies the need for a clear chain of communication/command.  I use the communication/command interchangeably because largely that is what it is, a direction of communication flow for conflict resolution.  However, the number one first thing one should do when there are non-life-threatening urgent matters is always work the issue at hand out with the person of interest.  This always helps prevent wasteful, productivity killing, unnecessary use of the chain of communication.

 

Only then if the issue at hand cannot be resolved you should move up the chain of command.  You might wonder which area to go to...go to your immediate supervisor, the person "who signs your PTO slip".  That is the best place to start.  The following is the Senior Leadership chain of communication.  This is MPMC design and the Joint Commission best practice.  

 We will be rolling out the full chart at the managers meeting. 

 

 



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

To:  IT@mpmc.org

Cc:  Cole white, Carmen Covington, David Solawetz, John Wisneski, Bethanie Reynolds, Sherri Solawetz
Bcc:  Board of Directors

 

From: Trampas Hutches

 

Subject: !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

i NEED MY SCANNER FIXED ASAP!!!!

 

Warm Regards,

 

Trampas Hutches, COO
Middle Park Medical Center
970-724-3130

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 How would you feel if you received this e-mail?  Would you be offended, angry, hurt?  How do you think the Cc people feel about this?  I know the senior leadership would frown on this.  Not over the scanner, but the sender is acting like a petulant two-year-old.  The Board of Directors would be wondering why they even received this e-mail, let alone the use of the blind carbon copy.  Not to mention IT would not be likely to move on the issue just due to the simple fact of human nature.

Right now you are saying to yourself “oh nobody sends these types of e-mails”.  You would be very wrong.  Aside from the obvious issues all around with this e-mail, the lost productivity to stop the fall-out from these e-mails are huge wasteful and “un-Lean”. 

 There are two things wrong with this:

1.        If the issue has not been resolved rather than Cc and Bcc sending chain of command should be followed.  An e-mail should be sent to the direct supervisor of the department in question
2.       All e-mail etiquette rules were broken

 

In the next managers meeting Trudy and I will be rolling out e-mail etiquette training.  This will be part of a broader training of organizational clarity.  The one thing that makes all of this go is communication.  It all comes down to the “good ol Golden Rule”   “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. 

 

I am glad to back to writing my blog as I have written close to a 50 page project over the past month for my Master’s Degree program.  This is one of my favorite parts of my job, my blog. 

 

**Disclaimer**  The above e-mail was completely fictional.