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The PE2020 pulse | A monthly e-newsletter on our MLH Performace Excellence efforts

October 2017

STEEEP brainstorm

Your ideas and feedback

Back in August, we asked our campus leadership teams to participate in a STEEEP brainstorm. Here were the questions we encouraged our teams to think about and discuss:

  • Does your staff feel safe—are there things we should consider at Main Line Health to help reinforce to staff our commitment to their safety?
  • Do you have suggestions for how we can deliver a timely and positive experience for our patients?
  • Do you have suggestions for how we can be more effective with our length of stay improvement efforts?
  • Capacity management – Share five tactics that you think can help flex staffing to volume in your area.
  • What are some ideas of how Main Line Health can continue to ameliorate disparities in care?

Here are some of the top themes and opportunities identified by our teams across the system as a result of our STEEP brainstorm sessions:

SAFE
  • Increased security presence and security rounding
  • Enforce badge policy for staff and visitors
  • First name only on ID badges
  • Consider limiting building entry points
  • Improve enforcement of searching patient belongings

TIMELY
  • Improve wayfinding
  • Increase communication with patients and families—manage expectations, provide frequent updates during delays
  • Enhance transport coverage/reduce delays

EFFICIENT
  • Downstaffing and upstaffing based on demand
  • Cross-training staff for efficient coverage in other departments when needed

EFFECTIVE
  • Provide coverage on weekends for services such as testing, pharmacy, outpatient services
  • Enhance discharge planning
  • Access to care coordination resources

EQUITABLE
  • Ensure common pay practices, staffing across Main Line Health
  • Hold diversity fairs and educational events to source talent
  • Increase community outreach in underserved/vulnerable areas
  • More cultural diversity training

PATIENT-CENTERED

Thank you for taking our PIVOT communications survey! Your feedback was incredibly helpful. To see the full results, visit pivot.mainlinehealth.org/news/pivot-engagement-survey-results.

We heard you!

We appreciate your ideas and feedback. Looking ahead, we will work to address many of these opportunities—and more—as we strive to meet our PE2020 goals. Here is a glimpse at some of the initiatives that are already underway.

Safe

Small box with check mark in it Under the leadership of System Director of Safety and Security, John Dougherty, we continue to build on our expert security team by hiring three new managers, all with law enforcement backgrounds.
Woman holding her hand to her ear in a listening motion
Small box with check mark in it Currently updating our security policies—including our policy on searching patient belongings.
Small box with check mark in it Main Line Health sent formal requests in writing to the Pennsylvania Department of Health requesting first name only on the ID badges with examples of why this was important and necessary. Each of these requests were denied. The ED and psych care areas are the only ones to have this exception approved.

Timely

Small box with check mark in it Surgical services transformation, including our new Block Scheduling Utilization in the OR, creates a more timely experience for patients and staff.
Small box with check mark in it Creation of the Great Experience Award, honoring employees committed to service excellence.

Efficient

Small box with check mark in it Upstaffing and Downstaffing Policy in effect as of August 2017 to ensure that we are appropriately staffing to changes in volume and workload.
Small box with check mark in it Working to expand the Main Line Health resource team to improve our flexibility and better meet the needs of patients and staff.

Effective

Small box with check mark in it Care progression rounding pilot launched at Lankenau and Riddle to standardize discharge planning and reduce the length of stay.
Small box with check mark in it Clinical resource management program and process in place to create standardized decision making to review new products, services and technology in order to optimize patient outcomes.

Equitable

Small box with check mark in it Diversity, Respect & Inclusion Learning Experience being rolled out to all staff in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Small box with check mark in it This November, we will celebrate Diversity Awareness Month with different events across the system.
Small box with check mark in it Established Main Line Health Center for Population Health Research at LIMR to assess opportunities to serve our community.
Small box with check mark in it Intensifying marketing efforts to recruit more diverse talent.

Patient-centered

Small box with check mark in it Based on the PIVOT communications survey, you can expect to see: a systemwide Roadshow with Epic demos, Inside PIVOT posted directly on the intranet, targeted project updates in between the monthly newsletter and weekly and daily updates during weeks of launch.

MAAPE survey results

Strengths and opportunities

Main Line Health has been selected to receive the Excellence Award from The Mid-Atlantic Alliance for Performance Excellence (MAAPE), a regional Baldrige based-awards program. Main Line Health was one of three health care organizations in the entire tri-state region to receive this recognition for 2017.

The highest state-level award given by MAAPE, the Excellence Award recognizes applicants from various industries that demonstrate—through practices and results—superior levels of performance excellence. This recognition by MAAPE makes us eligible to pursue the national Baldrige award within the next several years.

MAAPE examiners evaluate applicants in seven areas defined by the Baldrige Criteria: leadership; strategy; customers; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce; operations; and results. In addition to receiving the award, we also received the feedback we sought: a 25-page, detailed report addressing both our strengths and areas where we must focus to ensure we are creating an effective and highly reliable environment for our employees, medical staff, volunteers and the communities we serve.

  • Our strengths – Our highly engaged workforce (all of you!), our commitment to performance improvement, our Culture of Safety and Patient Experience work, our focus on investing in the health and wellness of our community and responding to societal needs, and our commitment to communication.
  • Areas where we can improve – A steadfast focus on systemness, consistent strategy deployment, consistent use of measurement and analytic tools, creating well-defined processes and promoting innovation in a systematic way to ensure that we remain a nimble organization prepared to respond to the marketplace dynamics.

“This is a tremendous honor for Main Line Health,” said Jack Lynch, president and CEO of Main Line Health, “This achievement represents the work of the entire Main Line Health team—which includes our employees, medical staff and volunteers. We have a lot to be proud of, but these challenges will continue to confront us. Only if we achieve high reliability, greater systemness, and lower total cost of care will we be poised to deliver on the Main Line Health mission for our communities today and well into the future.”

Inspiring excellence through systemwide thinking

We want to hear from you. Let us know about ideas and opportunities that will help us in our efforts to achieve our PE2020 goals.

Thank you to those highly engaged employees who have submitted ideas! They are being assessed by the PE20202 executive steering committee.

  • Deb Laumer, system director of clinical informatics, made a suggestion on how we can look for ways to reallocate unused hospital resources to other sites across the system that may need them, like with smartpumps.
  • Connie D'Agostini, staff nurse at Bryn Mawr Hospital, submitted an idea on how to reduce redundant forms in the Surgicenter.
  • Linda Keough, staff nurse at Bryn Mawr Hospital, proposed a solution to help us reduce unnecessary waste with supplies.
  SUBMIT YOUR IDEAS  
Main Line Health | Well ahead