Wednesday, August 21, 2013

GBMC’s Annual Goals – How We Know If We are Getting Closer to Our Vision

The GBMC HealthCare System has a vision of perfection. Our vision is to deliver the care that we want for our own loved ones to everyone, every time. Since we are human and our designs are created by humans, we know that we will never truly get to perfection, but we accept that we must keep getting better. So, how do we know if we are getting better? We see where we are at the end of every fiscal year, we set goals for ourselves, and we then measure our performance on a regular basis (at least monthly) - and we keep score!

At GBMC, we work throughout the year to improve in our four Aims (the areas that best describe the care that we want):
1. Best health outcomes
2. Best satisfaction
3. Least waste
4. Most joy for those providing the care

As we begin this new fiscal year this summer, it’s a good time to look back over the last couple of years to see how far we have come. I am happy to report that year over year, GBMC has seen improvement in most of our aims, but not for every measure, and we still have a lot of work to do:

GBMC annual goals-  Click image to enlarge
Under the Aim of “Best Health Outcomes,” we saw significant improvement in the number of “good catches” and reported events that allow us to ensure patient safety and implement important safety measures. We also reduced total incidents of harm from 190 incidents in FY’ 12 to 96 in FY’ 13, and our plan is to decrease the number of incidents even further in FY’ 14. Again, this reduction is due in large part to the safety processes and redesigned systems put in place by our team members.

If you look at the aim of “Most Joy,” we are focusing efforts not only on reducing employee injuries but also improving our employee and physician satisfaction. We know that when our employees and physicians are satisfied and happy with their work and work environment, our patients truly benefit. We’re still waiting for FY’13 actual scores, but I’m confident that we will meet our goals in this area.

Meeting our annual goals, and in some cases exceeding them, is a result of the hard work and dedication of our staff as well as new processes and redesigned systems that have enabled us to work more efficiently and effectively for our patients. The results show that new initiatives and redesigned systems help us ensure better health outcomes, while improving patient satisfaction, reducing waste throughout the system, and increasing the joy our staff experience delivering the high level of care.

I thank all GBMC employees for doing their part to help ensure we keep moving toward our vision, and ask that everyone continue to work toward even better results in FY’14.

Finally, I’d like to welcome to the GBMC team, Tanya Townsend, who recently joined us as Vice President and Chief Information Officer. She comes to us from Wisconsin where she was the Chief Information Officer at the Eastern Wisconsin Division of the Hospital Sisters Health System in Green Bay. Tanya’s background as a leader in healthcare IT and her experience with standardizing systems will surely benefit our organization. Please join me in welcoming Tanya to the GBMC family.

3 comments:

  1. Stephanie Kearns, RNAugust 21, 2013 at 10:44 AM

    Dr. Chessare,
    I am truly impressed with the efforts being made by the teams here at GBMC and GBMA. It is great to be part of a company that not only cares about itself and it's bottom line, but the staff and community as well. Along those lines I recently had the good fortune to watch the Head of Neurosurgery and his partner, who I work with, perform surgery together, and while in the room, I noticed the large amount of possible recyclable material that was generated by the operating team. Not contaminated material, but packaging, plastic bottles, tubing, surgical towels, etc., that just goes into landfills. This may have already been addressed, but when I look at the amount from one 2 hour surgery, in one OR, I wonder how much is generated daily, weekly, monthly and per year in the multiple rooms that are operating daily. I realize that you most likely have much more pressing problems to sort through, but if this subject wasn't already on your radar, I wanted to shine a light on it. Thank you again for your continued leadership and moving us all forward.

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    1. Thanks, Stephanie. As you may know, beginning a few years ago, our Green Team began a recycling program at GBMC and we have significantly reduced our tonnage to the landfill. I am sure that we have more opportuinities for improvement. I will connnect you to Mike Forthman who I am sure will be willing to work with you on this.

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