Ubuntu – We Are Better Together

Yesterday, we hosted our annual Black History Month celebration. This year’s theme was “Ubuntu: We Are Better Together.” I look forward to this great event every year, as we recognize the contributions that Black people have made across our society and within our own healthcare system.

As part of this year’s program, we featured the talents of our very own Wayman Scott, Associate Director of DEI and Community Relations. He is passionate about working with marginalized communities within Baltimore and is a gifted ceramic sculptor and artist. Click here to watch his inspirational story.

I also had the honor of introducing our keynote speaker – Faith Thomas, JD, Chair of our GBMC
HealthCare Board of Directors. In addition to her innumerable professional accomplishments, Faith is an active volunteer and has been a tireless contributor to GBMC over the years. During her talk, Faith noted that although we tend to focus on historical “giants” during Black History Month, there are many who don’t often get recognized but are very much part of history as well.

She went on to share personal stories about how her own relatives shaped who she is today – from her love of reading and her general sense of curiosity to her interest in business and passion for volunteerism. She ended with a poignant message that her relatives didn’t do their work for the applause; they did it for the cause. They wanted to help their community and had the wherewithal to do so. As we think about the concept of Ubuntu, she implored us all to reflect on our own legacies and consider how we ourselves can influence the generations to come.

Lisa Walker, our Chief Diversity and Learning Officer, concluded the celebration with a similar sentiment, with hope that we would all leave inspired by history but look to the future and think of ways big and small that we might each individually support inclusivity. Thank you to Lisa, our Diversity and Inclusion Planning Committee, and our Marketing and Conference Center colleagues for helping to make this event a success.

Click here to view the full Black History Month program.

Thank a Resident Day
February 24 is designated “Thank A Resident Day,” so please take the time to thank our resident physicians for their hard work and dedication in helping us move toward our vision. Post-graduate training can be exhausting with long hours, increased responsibilities, and stress – I remember those days well. I am grateful to all our residents and Residency Program faculty!

Phlebotomists Recognition Week
Last week was National Phlebotomists Recognition Week. Phlebotomists play a crucial role in maintaining patient health and promoting lab efficiency and effectiveness. In addition to drawing blood, they ensure that we collect high quality specimens to allow our physicians to make accurate diagnoses. Thank you to our dedicated phlebotomists!

In Gratitude for Our Supportive Donor Community

Just three weeks ago, I shared the news about some of the financial challenges GBMC HealthCare is facing, alongside the entire healthcare industry.

In that message, I expressed my gratitude to donors in the community who believe in us so much that they help in every way they can.

Once again, I am humbled by the generous support of our community.

It is with great enthusiasm that I announce that the Ruth Carol Fund, Inc., a loyal supporter of GBMC, has stepped forward with two significant gifts to help GBMC at a crucial time: 

The first is a $2 million gift to the Pediatric Department will be used to create an endowment to sustain our pediatric emergency and inpatient services into the future. As Baltimore County’s only pediatric ED, solidifying the future of pediatrics is essential to our mission.  

Additionally, the foundation granted us a $500,000 gift to help with the hospital’s current operational expenses. Support of this magnitude speaks volumes about the importance of GBMC to the people we have the privilege to serve. 

I am incredibly grateful to the Ruth Carol Fund, Inc. for these transformational investments in GBMC’s future. Thank you to all of you who help us continue to meet the needs of our community and serve as Greater Baltimore's only true community-based system of care.

A Clinical Team and its Patients Celebrate

Recently, we hosted a reunion for our Randolph B. Capone Cleft Lip and Palate Program patients and their families. This was their first in-person get together since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Approximately 100 past and current patients and their loved ones attended, in addition to our team members and their families. The mood was buoyant as everyone celebrated gathering indoors after three years, eating a pizza lunch, laughing together at jokes for all ages during a magic show, and socializing with others. Events like this bring the families together in a non-stress environment to meet and form relationships outside of the clinic and encourage our patients to have friendships with peers with similar health experiences.

For those of you who do not know, this program (formally the Greater Baltimore Cleft Lip and Palate Team) was formed in 2006 by Dr. Tonie Kline (Clinical Genetics), Dr. Patrick Byrne (Facial Plastic Surgery, Otolaryngology), and Dr. Randy Capone (Facial Plastic Surgery, Otolaryngology) through the Departments of Pediatrics and Otolaryngology, and renamed in 2022 the Randolph B. Capone Cleft Lip and Palate Program in Dr. Capone’s honor. Dr. Capone brought smiles and joy to his patients via his unique combination of warmth, intelligence, and surgical skill. Prior to his passing in early 2019, as medical director of the program, he led the efforts of our cleft lip and palate team in being recognized by the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association (ACPA), thus making us, at that time, one of four hospitals in the state to receive this endorsement. 

Children born with cleft lip and/or cleft palate are best served by a cohesive multidisciplinary team as opposed to separate specialists. Today, the program follows patients from the prenatal period through adulthood. The specialties include pediatric genetics and genetic counseling, facial plastic and reconstructive surgery, oral maxillofacial surgery, otolaryngology, orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, audiology, and pediatrics, as well as speech and language specialists, a registered dietitian, and social worker (also the team coordinator), with adjunctive pediatric ophthalmology, and neonatology. 

What makes this program so unique is the commitment to patient engagement and support. The team’s desire is that no patient should ever feel alone or without support from the cleft community, and there is an emphasis to ensure patients are not just supported medically, but also emotionally. Through the assistance of donations, the Cleft Program runs several large social family events a year, including the annual Pizza Party; a summer picnic; and other activities for specific age groups that focus on team building, trying new experiences, and building support. The Cleft Program would not be able to do any of this without our generous donors.

So, thank you to our donors and the team for doing this great work and for helping and improving our patients’ quality of life.  

Welcome and thank you!!

I would like to welcome Jeff Berenholtz as our new Department of Medicine Service Line Administrator. Jeff has tremendous and valuable experience in budgeting and strategy deployment, as well as data analysis and management. His experience includes time as a management consultant for Think Consulting, a company that helps organizations innovate, transform, and grow with a specialty around strategic alignment. He also served as an IT Technical Support Manager, IS Project Manager (technology division),  and as an Outpatient Pharmacy’s Business Operations Analyst at LifeBridge Health. Please welcome Jeff to the GBMC family.

I also want to thank Meghan Chan, our Surgery Service Line Administrator. Meghan has been with GBMC since 2013, starting as Manager of Budget and Financial Analysis before being promoted to Director of Corporate Decision Support. In her previous roles, Meghan was the leader of our annual operating budget development for the GBMC HealthCare system. During her time as our Surgery Service Line administrator, Meghan has combined her expertise in clinical and financial analytics with her energy to lead the growth and development of the many programs and services in the Surgery service line. Please join me in thanking Meghan!

We Have Come a Long Way, but Every Defect Is Still a Treasure

Way back in January of 2012, I wrote a blog titled, “Every Defect a Treasure.” I did not coin this phrase, but it is extremely helpful to reflect on if you want to make things better. Rather than hiding stories about errors or near misses, true learning organizations see the events as grand opportunities to find weaknesses in their systems that can be fixed to prevent future failures. 

Commercial aviation is a high-risk industry that healthcare is often compared to. Flying on a commercial flight is so much safer than it was in the 1960s and 1970s in large part because the leaders of that industry understood the importance of learning from crashes and near misses. They set up reporting systems, held the reporters harmless, then made changes to aircraft and to the standard procedures of aircraft crews and air traffic controllers based on what they learned.

Starting in the 1990s, healthcare started adopting similar reporting systems to learn from the events and near misses of harm to patients and began changing care based on what they learned. GBMC has been using error reporting systems for quite some time, and our care has gotten so much safer in part because of this work. We have changed our reporting systems as the technology has improved.

So, we recently upgraded our incident reporting system (formerly Quantros/RL Datix) to what we are now calling the STAR Incident Reporting Tool.  This updated system allows us to have convenient access through a mobile device, the Infoweb, or a link on Epic. There are icons for specific safety events, (now including workplace violence) and an icon to enter “Great Saves” (near misses).

This week, I spoke with Carolyn Candiello, our Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety, to find out more about our new tool and what it means for our healthcare system.

Q:  How does this STAR incident reporting tool benefit staff, managers, and the organization?
A:  Ease of reporting— the new software has allowed us to remove certain “mandatory” fields. The “tile” format allows the end user to quickly identify the type of event for reporting, whether a fall, medication error or a Great Save. One of the biggest advantages is the ability to report from your mobile device. I encourage you to visit the GBMC Infoweb for detailed instructions on how to add this to your phone or tablet.  Access to reporting is available through the Infoweb, through the link on every GBMC device and directly through resources in Epic. There is no need to enter patient information as it will populate when accessed via Epic.

Q:  It has been over a week since it went live, how is it going so far?  What has been some of the feedback from your colleagues? 
A:  Feedback has been very positive – we have had over 200 incidents reported today, which reflects a positive safety culture.

Q:  Do you feel that this new tool will encourage more staff members to report adverse events?
A:  We believe making reporting easy helps make our system of care safer. We expect all leaders to encourage reporting when anything happens that wasn’t supposed to happen and to share learning from reported incidents. 

Q:  What role do you envision the STAR tool will have for our health system's ongoing journey as a High Reliability Organization (HRO)?
A:  Sensitivity to operations and preoccupation with failure are two important attributes of an HRO. GBMC promotes these through our Safe Behaviors. You may recognize two of these as “having a questioning attitude” and “paying attention to details.” These attributes of an HRO and our Safe Behaviors have made patient care much more reliable over the years, resulting in hundreds of Great Saves. We hope with the new tool that our culture of reporting will get even stronger.  

I want to thank Carolyn and her staff for all that they do every day to make care safer – to provide the care we would want for ourselves and for our loved ones!

When Something Truly Inhuman Happens

Last week video footage of the tragic death of Tyre Nichols was released. I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death.  Tragedies such as this one in Memphis, Tennessee occur too often and is another painful reminder that GBMC’s pursuit of health, healing and hope for our communities is as important as ever and there remains much work to be done.

It is important at times like this that we unite against actions of this sort. Let us rely on our shared commitment to a safe, caring and just community at GBMC Healthcare and beyond. As we navigate these emotionally challenging times, please remember that all GBMC HealthCare system employees have access to the Carebridge Employee Assistance Program, which offers 24/7 support, guidance and mental health counseling if you are struggling to process this event and others like it.

My heart goes out to the Nichols family in their time of tremendous grief.