Delivering on Our Vision

Wednesday of this week was a very big day for GBMC. We celebrated the opening of the new office of Family Care Associates. We began at 8AM. All GBMC staff were welcomed to tour the site on the ground floor of the North Pavilion. I hosted the Baltimore County Business Advisory Council and my colleagues were quite impressed. They couldn’t believe that there was no patient waiting room and they loved the idea of the “flow station” where the physician and medical assistant worked together to improve communication. The two physician leads, Dr. Sarah Whiteford and Dr. Ben Hand gave us a brief presentation on the patient centered medical home and how they had designed this new office to be able to efficiently care for patients. (See my blog on the 3p process that the team used in designing their new home: What would your ideal primary care office look like? http://ahealthydialogue.blogspot.com/2013/12/what-would-your-ideal-primary-care.html).

At 10 AM, the media arrived. We had reporters from a number of newspapers and television stations. We were covered on the evening news on both channels WMAR and WBAL. On Thursday morning, the story was on the front page of the Baltimore Sun!

In the afternoon we welcomed colleagues from Kansas City and Mississippi who were interested in seeing how the office was designed. All were impressed with what the team had built and with how it was being used. Chris Backous, the facilitator from the Virginia Mason Institute, who had helped the team in the design phase, flew from Seattle for the big day. In the evening, we unveiled the plaque honoring Jim and Jacqueline Stradtner and their family. Jim is the Chair of our Board Strategic Planning Committee and has been a force in helping to develop our vision back in 2010 and in holding us accountable to deliver on it. The Stradtner’s made a significant donation to help build the office. We are very grateful for the Stradtner’s’ gifts of both time and treasure.

What impressed me the most were the smiles on all of the staff of the office. From Drs. Whiteford and Hand, to their colleagues Drs. Jillian Klaucke, Dr. JoAnne Wills, Dr. Kathleen Mathey, and Dr. Courtenay Morrow, to Jeanne Gayle the practice manager, Anne Conrad the care manager and all of the medical assistants, and patient service assistants…everyone was proud of what they had accomplished and delighted to be part of a big team that was delivering patient-centered advanced primary care- the care that you would want for your own loved ones and certainly what I want for my loved ones!

I want to thank Drs. Whiteford, Hand and all of their team. I also want to thank Ben Beres, our Vice President for Physician Practice Management and Danielle Da Silva, the Ambulatory Service Line Administrator for working so hard to make this a reality. Many are now talking about patient-centeredness but GBMC is delivering it.