A New Leader Gives Us Her Assessment

GBMC committed to using continuous quality improvement as its business model in 2010. We have made a lot of progress in improving health outcomes and the care experience since then. We have also driven out waste by designing standard work and deploying it, and we have created a more joyful work environment and made our people measurably safer on the job. 

When a new leader joins us from another organization, it’s a great opportunity to see what the new leader thinks about the status of our improvement culture.  

So, this week I asked Barbara Smith Peace, MBA, MPH, BSN, RN, LSSGB, our new Director of Quality and Patient Safety, to give us her take on GBMC in the area of quality and patient safety since she joined us a couple of months ago. 

Before arriving at GBMC, Barbara served as the Director of Quality at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas where she led quality, patient safety, accreditation, and improvement and served as the Program Director helping the hospital achieve Magnet designation. She started her career as a clinical research coordinator working in Arusha, Tanzania, which inspired her to pursue a career in healthcare.   

You joined GBMC approximately two months ago. Since then, what have you learned about us when it comes to quality and patient safety? 
When it comes to quality and patient safety at GBMC, I have been consistently impressed by the degree of engagement and ownership I have witnessed in so many areas on so many levels.  To name just a few, I see: physicians actively leading quality efforts to improve both hospital acquired conditions and outcomes for diabetic patients; nurses and techs working collaboratively to reduce falls, pressure injuries and infections; security and support services actively partnering with other departments to provide patient care; and robust processes to promote safety in both the laboratory and pharmacy. At GBMC, the vision is real – quality and patient safety are not foreign concepts. Instead, all staff members are making a concerted effort to treat every patient as their loved one by reducing harm and improving the patient experience, and I find that both commendable and exciting. 

Compared to your previous places of employment, what are a few things you noticed that we’re doing really well and what areas have you identified that need some improvement?  
GBMC does a great job of using and sharing data. This is especially evident in the use of the Lean Management System – dashboards are visible, they are discussed frequently, and leaders can easily speak to the metrics. This has not always been my experience, so I’m proud to work for an organization that is transparent with its data sharing. That said, we can enhance this transparency by ‘pushing’ our outcome and infection prevention data to unit-level leadership; staff and unit-level leaders can better manage what is measured if they have easy access to it. My hope is that we can work closely with our Epic partners to improve our quality dashboards to bring this transparency to the unit level.  

What are some other initiatives that you and your leader, Carolyn L. Candiello, MA, CPHRM, Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety, are currently working on that you would like to share?
Carolyn and I are working on a few initiatives to celebrate the quality and patient safety work being conducted at GBMC. We will be publishing new issues of Quality Time, our department newsletter, with a plan to highlight unit-level work, recognize staff members for high-quality care, spotlight shared learning opportunities from recent safety events, and build on our culture of reporting. We will continue to share Great Save stories, and we are planning on ways to celebrate and recognize units when they significantly improve their quality metrics. Staff members are committed to quality and patient safety at GBMC, so we look forward to both supporting them and celebrating their work!  

What are some of your own professional goals, moving forward? 
As a nurse, I love to learn and grow, which is why I have enjoyed my year-long director fellowship with the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. After I complete the fellowship in June, one of my short-term professional goals is to become a certified professional in healthcare quality. I am excited to be part of the GBMC family, so a more long-term goal, I look forward to working collaboratively and building solid relationships as we continue to improve patient care. This professional goal stems from my career-long commitment to improving healthcare. Early in my career, I served as a clinical research coordinator in Tanzania, Africa, and it was during that time that I realized I wanted to dedicate my professional life to quality and patient safety. As such, when I think about my goals, I reflect on my favorite Tanzanian saying: “if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.” So, in the upcoming months and years, I look forward to putting in the work, meeting people, asking questions, learning, and sharing because together, I know we can go far! 

Thank you Barbara for your insight and welcome to GBMC!