From the July 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


HCBN: Mercy Health West worked with GE Healthcare to streamline the merger — what developed from that relationship?
MS: It was really helpful for pulling together the cultures of the two hospitals and particularly the medical staff. We pulled together leaders into a room and they were able to pull together the way we trained employees.

HCBN: In what ways has staff improved the patient experience?
MS: One of the ways is through behavior expectations created out of the GE facilitated workshop. When you walk in, you’re greeted by staff and a group of volunteers. Our commitment is that no one gets directions — patients and visitors are escorted to where they’re going.

So we have a practice called managing up — where the staff or volunteers use that time to talk about the various features of the hospital. If for example, we’re walking them to the operating room because a family member is getting knee surgery, we might tell them about how we’re ranked in the top five for the state for that procedure. If we’re walking them to a patient room, we might tell them about how there’s no cut off for time for patient visitation.

HCBN: What goals are you most proud of reaching and which goals are you still striving to reach?
MS: We have a new standard that’s tracking dispatch to cath lab. We want that to be less than 90 minutes — well beyond what the American Heart Association sees as achievable in most communities. We’re beating that over 80% of the time. It’s an amazing testament to the teamwork.

For us, our board set some goals around financial performance and quality outcomes and patient experience scores. So last month, we’re at a level that we’re exceeding every goal in those categories. And it wasn’t projected that we’d hit many of these goals until our second year of operation.

Click here to view the hospital spotlight pictorial of Mercy Health - West Hospital.



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