Friday, July 23, 2010

What if it was your daughter?

I would like to thank everyone for welcoming me to GBMC! Since taking on the CEO role in June, many people have asked “what is your vision for GBMC?”

Our vision statement talks about becoming the organization that is known for ….”personalized service” ….with the guiding principle that “the patient always comes first”. My take on this vision is that we want to become the organization that delivers the care that we would want for our own loved ones to everyone, every time.

I have asked myself many times “What if it was my daughter?” I would want my daughter to go where she would get:

· the best clinical outcome
· the highest level of satisfaction with the way the care is delivered
· with the least amount of waste in time and money
· and where those providing the care got the most joy from helping people.

The game for us then is to come to work every day trying to get closer to the goal of the care that we would want for our own loved one......... for everyone, all the time!

I have been in healthcare a long time. No one will argue with this vision. Why are we so far away from it on many days? I think its because we don't change as fast as we need to . We need to get better at executing change. Here's an example: yesterday I met with representatives of our "Hand Hygiene" team. GBMC is only average at getting everyone to clean their hands before they go into a patient's room and after. We know this is the thing to do and we have the will to do it.....proven ideas on how to do it are out there.....but we are not good enough at executing those changes. But we will get better at execution!

If it was your daughter.....you would want the caregivers to clean their hands before and after....so we have to get to it!

I would love to hear your thoughts and I look forward to working with everyone to make GBMC even better than it is already.

3 comments:

  1. Hand hygiene can be put to the side when we get busy or critical issues come up for our patients, teamwork can help with this problem. If someone forgets to practice proper hand hygiene, remind him or her. If you forget hand hygiene and someone reminds you, thank that person. This small step is one of the most important things we can do to protect our patients.

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  2. Change is a hard thing for everyone, but we need it to happen in order to move forward. We are dealing with patient safety as well as our safety. We must not forget that and we sure do not want to get anyone else sick either especially our loved ones. It is a small task, but with small changes it can make a big difference.

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  3. Personally, I've gotten better at hitting the pump BEFORE I enter a patient's room. It was a matter of making it a routine in my head. On more than one occasion I've watched a resident sneeze or cough on their hands and then walk past the sanitizer right into the patient's room. Yuck! My Dad died in a nursing home. The care he got when we were right there was less than adequate. I shudder when I let myself imagine what extra germs the staff exposed him to when we weren't. I try to see his face when I'm working.

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