Tuesday, September 29, 2009

This is an exciting time to be a member of the Orange Regional Medical Center Family, especially when considering the construction of our new hospital and how it will assist us in better serving our community’s healthcare needs. There are many important activities that we are undertaking as an organization to help us prepare for work in our new facility. Hospital leadership has developed 16 teams to oversee and coordinate all aspects of the new hospital project. Specifically, the Move Management team is planning for the physical relocation of our two campuses.

Moving a hospital, or in our case two hospitals, is a very complex process. We have engaged AOS Inc., a company that specializes in large, complex healthcare moves, to guide us through the process. AOS has successfully moved over 30 hospitals in the past 10 years, and will work with us until our physical transition into the new hospital is completed.

AOS leverages their experience and will apply sophisticated project management tools and techniques to ensure the execution of our move is smooth. Project leaders at AOS have prior careers in military logistics management, moving people and equipment around the globe. Over the coming months, employees and physicians may be asked to work with AOS and Orange Regional leadership on this relocation effort. Your support, cooperation and input will be very important to this process.

I appreciate your support and participation in these important planning efforts. Hospital employees are asked to please reach out to your supervisor if you have questions, comments, concerns or ideas for our transition strategy.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Expectation: Excellence - Priority: Quality

While we work to bring new healthcare services and technology to our community, construct the first new hospital in New York State in twenty years and prepare to consolidate two campuses into one, many organization-wide initiatives are underway. One of the most important initiatives is organizational development to enhance the effectiveness of leaders, employees and teams which will improve hospital performance. A significant element to this plan involves cultural change. It is imperative that we all work together to foster an environment that promotes staff unity, quality, consistency in patient care and positive behavior.

I’d like to thank the employees who were invited to participate in one of several focus groups that took place on July 24. The purpose of those groups was to gain employee insight and determine priority issues and concerns regarding the staff integration process into the new hospital. Now that key issues have been identified by staff, we’ll form addition groups comprised of Arden Hill and Horton campus employees from similar departments to go through a series of team-building sessions. Later, these teams will evaluate similarities and differences between each campus regarding various processes and patient care practices so we may develop best practices for the new hospital. Additionally, we have hired a Director of Organizational Development, Betsy Kennally who will be instrumental in the staff integration and team building process.

A major component in promoting a positive environment is holding staff accountable for their contribution toward positive change. All staff is, and will continue to be, evaluated on service excellence and our Standards of Behavior. Beginning this fall, our performance evaluations will be heavily weighted in the service excellence area and more emphasis will be placed on behavior. The evaluation form will outline more specifically what positive behavior should look like. The service excellence component will account for at least 50% of an individual’s overall performance rating. Leadership will be sharing the evaluation form with staff by the end of September.

It is our goal to see an increase inpatient satisfaction as a result of this new emphasis on service excellence and behavior. We will also seek to correlate the employee performance ratings with the patient satisfaction scores in each of the patient care areas.

Our patients’ experience begins and ends with each of us. Patient satisfaction and quality care begins with your commitment to be part of a team that focuses on positive development so that we may become the best regional hospital in New York State.