by
Diana Bradley, Staff Writer | November 01, 2012
From the November 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
DMBN: Do you interact with CEOs from other hospitals/ health care facilities? If so, how has that benefited you?
DC: As part of Banner Health encompassing 23 facilities in total, we are currently working in what Banner defines as our “innovation phase.” We look to each other for best practices at each facility. Those practices have to be measurable, sustainable, and if they fit those criteria, our role is to then transfer those best practices to other Banner facilities. So we raise the tide for all the ships at Banner. Of course we do talk outside Banner as well, to accomplish the same goals; we don’t have the answers to everything.
DMBN: Are there any “green” or eco initiatives at your facility?
DC: We’ve started our Print Smart initiative, which aims to reduce printing costs through centralized printing. We are trying to get people to think about their printing needs and reduce our overall carbon footprint on the environment. We also have a Think Green committee that just rolled out our recycling program. In addition, we are using digital communications instead of traveling for meetings, saving the eco system.
DMBN: Does your hospital have any big announcements or developments on the horizon?
DC: Banner is expanding our access to the community through the development of primary care centers throughout Arizona and Colorado. So there have been recent announcements about new primary care centers that have either just opened, are under construction or about to begin construction. Our goal there is to make sure we are serving the needs of our community and giving people access points to primary care. We are part of the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization Model and well-prepared to begin that this fall. We are also really proud of the Care Transitions Program in collaboration with the Sun Health Foundation, a philanthropic organization in the community that raises money for Banner Boswell. The program identifies patients being discharged from our hospital and then a team goes out to the patients’ homes to make sure they are following up with their doctors and their medications are properly managed. The goal is to reduce the 30-day readmission rate. We have only been trying this for a few months, but our initial findings are nothing short of really amazing. They are tracking close to 100 patients now and that readmission rate is a fraction of the national average and our average here prior to the program.
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