Giving patients a national, state, local view of health reform
by Raymond Hino
I focus a lot of my blog posts on community engagement and maintaining open lines of communication between our community hospitals and the people that we serve. This is an ever-evolving process.
I have used a CEO blog forum, a community advisory committee and speaking events at clubs and organizations as ways to reinforce the bond between our hospital and our customers.
Recently we tried something new to communicate with and educate the public. We held our first ever "Summit on Hospital Finances." We wanted to put on a program that would be worthy of the three-hour weeknight time commitment that we were...
Source: hospital impact - May 16, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
What nurses taught me about compassionate care
by Kenneth H. Cohn
In anticipation of National Nurses Week, I dedicate my monthly guest post to them not only because my wife of 28 years is a nurse but also because nurses have taught me lessons about how to be a more caring physician.
I reinforce my previous salute to Nikki, an emergency room nurse in Massachusetts who took me aside and told me, "Just because that was your eighth patient with the same condition doesn't mean that it was her eighth sprain." Eventually, I got over my wounded pride and adopted the perspective that she viewed me as teachable.
I believe that my reverence for what nurses do for patients em...
Source: hospital impact - May 11, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Jupiter Medical Center: The when and how to use Kaizen in healthcare
by Alicia Caramenico, FierceHealthcare
With hospitals feeling the pressure to improve efficiency and lower costs, some are implementing the Kaizen method to streamline processes. Kaizen is among a number of process improvement strategies taking hold at hospitals across the country, including Six Sigma and lean.
They all aim to improve existing processes within a hospital, but they're not one in the same.
So we turned to a hospital that gained experience with Kaizen, Jupiter (Fla.) Medical Center. Lee Fox (pictured right), M.D., Sheridan Healthcare's chief of radiology at the medical center, has been in the kaizen trench...
Source: hospital impact - May 9, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
What nurses taught me about compassionate care
by Kenneth H. Cohn
In anticipation of National Nurses Week, I dedicate my monthly guest post to them not only because my wife of 28 years is a nurse but also because nurses have taught me lessons about how to be a more caring physician.
I reinforce my previous salute to Nikki, an emergency room nurse in Massachusetts who took me aside and told me, "Just because that was your eighth patient with the same condition doesn't mean that it was her eighth sprain." Eventually, I got over my wounded pride and adopted the perspective that she viewed me as teachable.
I believe that my reverence for what nurses do for patients em...
Source: hospital impact - May 9, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Boston bombings reveal evolution of hospital crisis communication
by Nancy Cawley Jean
Like the rest of the world, I was in utter amazement as the story of the Boston bombings played out, and it's something I can't stop thinking about. I can't imagine what the victims and their families have been living through since it happened and all the recovery time still ahead of them.
In the aftermath, I can sit back and think more clearly from a professional point of view. The first thing that comes to mind is what those media folks were experiencing at the Boston hospitals. I totally understand. They were inundated with media trucks, media calls, reporters wanting answers to a myriad of ques...
Source: hospital impact - May 9, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Integrated care: The bridge between quality and efficiency
by Julie Manas
Care integration has become one of the fastest growing buzzwords in healthcare lately, which perhaps has as much to do with people like me who end up using those two words in nearly every conversation (honestly, we can't help ourselves) than any other reason.
What does "care integration" really mean? Is it a revolutionary new concept that has become the right thing to do because of the Affordable Care Act? Or is it something we've been practicing for many years and just haven't talked about it?
I would venture to say it's more the latter than the former, but we're putting added energy and effort towards ...
Source: hospital impact - May 9, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Even more firsthand symptoms of a broken healthcare system
by Thomas Dahlborg
"You are not going to be a professional baseball player ... "
Jimmy is a player on the high school recreational basketball team I coach, and yes, the orthopedic surgeon who reviewed Jimmy's MRI and who spent a total of 30 minutes over two visits tried to destroy this boy's dream (unintentionally, I hope) to play professional baseball.
I learned of this healthcare encounter from Jimmy's mother and as she relayed these events to me I composed the following letter to this physician in my mind:
Dear Doctor:
Do you know Jimmy? Truly know him?
Do you know what Jimmy has overcome throughout his life to...
Source: hospital impact - May 9, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Remembering your healthcare passion
by Scott Kashman
Yesterday afternoon, we celebrated one of our nurses who received recognition among her peers. With National Nurses Week next week (Happy Nurses Week!), this was the beginning of our celebration.
As our system chief nursing officer detailed why this particular nurse was receiving recognition, our award-winning nurse started to realize she was the one being honored.
Nicole, the nurse being recognized, started to tear up even before her name was announced. Of course, there were not too many dry eyes (mine included) when you saw the impact this recognition meant to her.
She indicated she was having a real...
Source: hospital impact - May 4, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
SCL Health System: Picking the right accountable care partner
by Richard Lopes
It's no secret that, as an industry, we must become more accountable for the care we provide patients for their healthcare dollar spend. It is exciting that as an industry, we are coming together to create new partnerships and ideas to accomplish these goals.
Last month, SCL Health System (SCLHS) announced the formation of a joint venture with Univita Health, an expert in home-based care management and delivery, that, when fully implemented, will deliver a high-value continuum of care for patients and extend our healing mission beyond the walls of our hospitals.
The current healthcare environment, esp...
Source: hospital impact - May 1, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Patient safety lessons from lean manufacturing
by Diane Miller
How does "production" apply to healthcare? Patients are not cars, of course. Yet both manufacturing and healthcare are filled with complex production processes.
In healthcare, these include admitting a patient, scheduling a clinic visit or undergoing surgery. All these processes should embrace the concepts of quality, safety, customer satisfaction, staff satisfaction and cost effectiveness.
For example, at Virginia Mason Health System in Seattle, in much the same way that Toyota employees are empowered to "stop the line" when they encounter a problem on the assembly line, we used the Virginia Mason Pro...
Source: hospital impact - May 1, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
How to deliver a world-class patient experience
by Doug Della Pietra
In a very recent article, Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, wrote: "Not all hospitals and medical centers can afford the most modern facilities or advanced technology. However, we can all afford to listen to our patients, hear their stories and empathize with their hopes and fears."
Be a World-Class Service Provider
Like Cosgrove, Dr. Bryan Williams emphasized the critical importance of relationship and interaction during his keynote address "Delivering World Class Service: What Healthcare Can Learn from Hospitality" at The Beryl Institute's Patient Experience Confere...
Source: hospital impact - May 1, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Hospital growth: Strategies to reach potential male patients
by Andrea J. Simon
In my last blog post for Hospital Impact, I shared a case study in which a hospital realized men represented an untapped market for growing its patient base. I encouraged all hospitals to see the opportunities awaiting them if they likewise targeted men and men's health.
Tellingly, several readers who commented wanted to "know more about how you do this," as did a number of clients. So I'd now like to tell you more about men's health from the perspective of the physicians who became "men's health champions" at Men's Health University, a successful initiative at Integris Health in Oklahoma.
In preparat...
Source: hospital impact - May 1, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
In emergencies, hospital preparedness goes beyond planning
by Alicia Caramenico, FierceHealthcare
With roughly 144 patients injured from the Boston Marathon bombings--and 62 victims still at Boston hospitals, including 12 people in critical condition--hospital disaster planning has been put to the test.
While hospital emergency departments are required to have and evaluate their mass-casualty plans, the horrible events in Boston this week not only reinforced the importance of testing plans for all types and sizes of emergencies, but also the fact that sometimes hospitals will need more than just a plan.
As one hospital director told me, an emergency response plan is no good unl...
Source: hospital impact - April 27, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
Why aren't employers choosing your hospital?
by Kathleen Bartholomew
Revolutions that change the course of history do not begin in thunderous explosions of action covered by the media.
Revolutions that changed governments, that gave women the right to vote, that spurred the civil rights movement, that changed the belief system of a nation ... these revolutions began as seeds of conversations between like-minded individuals who said, "Something must be done. We must do it ourselves."
So it was that in 2012, Wal-Mart announced it would foot the entire bill for certain bundled treatments--heart, spine, and transplant surgeries--if its 1.2 million employees would go...
Source: hospital impact - April 27, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
The what and how of physician engagement
by Kenneth H. Cohn
The inspiration for today's post comes from an external and an internal source. For the external source, I thank Drs. Kenneth Bertka and Robert Heizelman at Ohio-based Mercy for their post entitled "Leading Physician Engagement: Spanning Boundaries, Communicating Change."
Having had the pleasure of working at Mercy, I assure readers that it is a faith-based system that lives its values daily of reverence for all people, community, justice, commitment to the poor, stewardship, courage and integrity.
The authors wrote the first step to physician engagement entails establishing a direction, achieving s...
Source: hospital impact - April 27, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: Wendy Johnson Source Type: blogs
