A Challenging Year coming to a Close

As 2022 ends, I would like to thank all my GBMC colleagues for everything you have done as the pandemic waxed and waned, and as we dealt with workforce shortages and financial challenges. You never lost sight of our vision phrase and always stepped up to provide the care we want for our own loved ones to every patient, every time. 

Additionally, I want to thank our community for coming back to GBMC for care as the risk of serious illness from COVID-19 has been reduced, thanks in large part to people getting immunized. Our Emergency Department sustained volumes that have been the highest in our history while other local hospitals have seen reductions. 

Thank you for trusting us with your care. It is an honor to serve you.

Even though we experienced challenges in 2022, we accomplished a lot as well. Let’s reflect on a few of them:

 

--Readers of Baltimore STYLE magazine named GBMC “Best ER/Hospital” and “Best Vein Clinic”

--Our Primary Stroke Center was re-certified by the Joint Commission

--81 members of our medical staff across 40 specialties were named a “Top Doc” by Baltimore magazine 

--GBMC was recognized by the readers of The Daily Record as the Best Hospital in Maryland

--GBMC HealthCare was noted as a Top Health System to Work For by Forbes. A total of 262 hospitals and health systems were included and GBMC HealthCare was among Maryland’s top three!

--Baltimore's Child magazine "Reader's Choice" poll recognized GBMC HealthCare as Best ER for Kids,” “Best Pediatric Vision Care,” and “Best Place to Deliver a Baby.” GBMC was also named runner-up for Best Pediatric Hospital

--GBMC was recognized as one of America’s Best Maternity Hospitals 2022 by Newsweek

--We were awarded the Joint Commission Advanced Certification in Perinatal Care

--GBMC was recognized on the 2022 Honor Roll for the Executive Alliance - A Catalyst for Women Leaders in Maryland

--GBMC was named “Best ER/Hospital” and “Best Vein Clinic” in Baltimore Jewish Times list of “Best of Jewish Baltimore”

--Six of our nursing colleagues were recognized as winners in Baltimore magazine’s 2022 Excellence in Nursing! 

--GBMC HealthCare was recognized by healthcare supply chain leader Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX) as a “Best 50” healthcare provider

This short list recognizes only a few accomplishments. What others shall we celebrate? Please share your thoughts.

I would like to again offer my heartfelt thanks to our doctors, nurses, other clinicians, and support staff, for your hard work on the frontlines and for your courage, strength, generosity, and perseverance. 

Let me say again that it is an absolute honor and pleasure to work alongside you, and I look forward to overcoming the financial challenges that face us and gaining from the opportunities that await us in the year ahead to continue our work toward our vision of being the true community-based system of care that can deliver to everyone the care that we want for our own loved ones

Wishing you peace, good health, and happiness in the New Year.

Happy Holidays and Thank you!!

The holiday season is a great time to reflect on our accomplishments and our on-going challenges. 2022 has seen the GBMC HealthCare System rise to the occasion once again in serving our community with health, healing, and hope. Workforce shortages and the upward inflationary spiral of the cost of almost every input to the delivery of healthcare have placed significant stress on our system, but we continue to work on the promise of our vision to be the community-based system of care that can deliver to every patient, every time, the care that we would want for our own loved ones. 

Our clinicians, support staff and volunteers have led us through the toughest of times, and I am grateful to them. Their dedication and hard work in taking care of our patients is remarkable. I wish you all a peaceful and joyful holiday season. 

To the patients and their families who put their trust in us every day – thank you for making GBMC your healthcare partner. 

To our donors for their generosity – thank you for the countless initiatives you have funded and for believing that our region deserves specialized services and state-of-the-art technology even when health insurance resources are not there to cover it. 

Together, once again, we have advanced the quality of healthcare in our community, and we are excited to do even more in 2023 to further the health and wellness of our neighbors.

Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy holiday season and a prosperous 2023!

Congratulations!!
Paul Celano, MD, FACP, FASCO, The Herman and Walter Samuelson Medical Director of the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Cancer Institute, was recently appointed to the Maryland State Council on Cancer Control. The Council is a 25-member body appointed by the Governor that works to educate and advise government officials, public and private organizations, and the general public concerning policies, programs and innovations to reduce the incidence and mortality of cancer in Maryland.

Way to go, Dr. Celano!

Working to Attract Nurses to Our Team

Nurses are the backbone of a hospital. We are blessed at GBMC with an outstanding nursing staff. Like all other hospitals, however, we are having a difficult time having enough nurses to get the job done. We were already entering a shortage before the pandemic and COVID-19 only made it worse. The shortage has triggered a “call to the market” as salaries have gone up, and it will only be a matter of time before the supply of nurses catches up to the demand for them.

But what can we do in the meantime? We need to work to make GBMC the best place for a nurse to work so we can keep the nurses we have and attract nurses from other organizations. 

Every two weeks, I spend an hour welcoming our new people at employee orientation. My task at orientation is to begin to enroll our new colleagues in our vision. I was so pleased to see so many nurses at this week’s orientation.  

Our new Chief Nursing Officer, Angie Feurer, MSN, RN, NEA-BC; has been working with our Chief Human Resources Officer, Anna-Maria Palmer; and our Vice President of Marketing and Philanthropy, Jenny Coldiron; and their teams on creative ways to increase our nursing workforce. They have created a campaign titled “Discover the GBMC Difference” as a way to highlight the uniqueness of GBMC HealthCare. The photo (left) gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the recent recording of television spots that will start to air early next month. We also will distribute this message through various social media avenues, like Facebook and LinkedIn, and our employees can help us by sharing these posts with their social networks.

Also, we have restructured our supplemental positions so that nurses will be paid more according to their years of experience and will get increased rates for committing to work more supplemental shifts. This is allowing us to invest in our own nurses to take care of our patients rather than relying on agency nurses.  

In addition, we are rewarding our employees for assisting with our recruiting efforts . Employees can receive a $5,000 bonus for referring a full-time hospital bedside nurse who is hired at GBMC, and they can receive $2,500 for a part-time bedside nurse. At Gilchrist, we are offering a $2,000 referral bonus for day-shift nurses and a $4,000 referral bonus for night-shift nurses. Human Resources continues to attend career fairs at all area colleges and universities that train nurses. 

We are committed to ensuring that all GBMC nurses are compensated fairly. We offer many benefits to our nurses, including nursing scholarships, a loan repayment program, tuition prepayment for continuing education, and a last semester repayment program. GBMC has adopted a professional excellence model that allows nurses to learn and grow within their specialty and allows them to focus their interests on one of three tracks: quality and safety, education, or administration. 

Our healthcare system benefits from a talented and engaged nursing workforce, and we will continue to do whatever we can to attract and retain our nurses.

Getting Together

Yesterday, we held our annual employee Holiday Meal gathering for staff. This yearly tradition offers our workers the opportunity to eat delicious food, spend time with one another, and enjoy the festivities.  As usual, music filled the air as we were entertained by the talented members of the GBMC Holiday Choir.  Many thanks to the Food and Nutrition staff for preparing a wonderful meal and to everyone who helped to make the event a festive and memorable occasion. Thank you to our employees for all you do every day and I wish you all Happy Holidays!

Congratulations!!

Evelyn Bowmaster, MAS, BSN, RN, CPHQ, CPPS, Director, Quality & Patient Safety, Ambulatory Services for GBMC HealthCare, recently received the Regent’s Award from the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).

Eve, who has been with GBMC for 17 years, is an outstanding leader who oversees continual improvement for GBMC Health Partners. She has also played a critical role in our COVID testing and vaccine programs.

We are delighted to see her hard work be recognized. The Regent’s Award is given annually to a healthcare executive and ACHE member who has made significant contributions to the advancement of healthcare management and the achievement of the organization’s goals.

Please join me in congratulating Eve!

Readers of Baltimore STYLE magazine recently named us “Best ER/Hospital” and “Best Vein Clinic.” I am thankful for the marvelous validation we receive from the community and for their trust in GBMC to meet their healthcare needs.

Fabulous Improvement Work in the Pharmacy (again)

It is frustrating to look for an item at a store and find an empty shelf where it was supposed to be. While annoying, we deal with it and move on. When it comes to obtaining medication from an automated dispensing cabinet (ADC), there is no option to ignore the stock-out, as the medicine must be provided to the patient. What ensues is extra work by Nursing and Pharmacy that provides no additional value to the patient.

Using our Lean Management System (LMS), the Pharmacy team under their Executive Director, Yuliya Klopouh and led by Perry Shafner, Medication Safety Officer, endeavored to reduce non-value-added work created by ADC stock-outs. To further drive out waste, two additional goals were set: to decrease the number of times the Pharmacy had to restock the ADCs and to remove stagnant, low-use inventory that sits and expires. The results were promising. Control charts confirmed significant decreases of stock-outs and Pharmacy restocks in the units that were optimized. Around $2,500 of low-use medications were removed and reallocated.

Pharmacy was waiting for the unit-specific work to show an impact on overall inpatient stock-outs. Finally, the cumulative control chart began to show a shift – in the wrong direction! Sequential data points showed an increase in stock-outs, which was the opposite of the intended goal.

Following the model for improvement, Pharmacy studied the specific stock-outs and identified the root cause together with other opportunities. The findings were acted on by adjusting inventory levels, and a prediction was made that stock-outs would begin to decrease significantly. The following two weeks, inpatient stock-outs decreased below average, as anticipated. By following the model for improvement, an initial setback was leveraged into an opportunity for further improvement.

This work is especially important given the progress of the Promise Project.  The Pharmacy Department should be fully prepared to implement a model that assures reliable medication management on the units with no stockouts and consistent inventory.  

I am so proud of Yuliya, Perry, and the entire Pharmacy team. They have always embraced continuous improvement in the way they run the Pharmacy.  GBMC and all our patients benefit from their work!