We are Grateful for Our Volunteers – National Volunteer Appreciation Week 2019

This week we are celebrating National Volunteer Appreciation Week and we are so grateful for all that our volunteers do to help us meet our mission of health, healing, and hope.

With more than 1,100 volunteers serving the hospital and Gilchrist, we have one of the largest volunteer auxiliaries in Maryland. Every day, our volunteers share their talents and spread kindness throughout our hospital. They are all accomplished members of our community and we couldn’t achieve our vision of providing to every patient, every time the care that we would want for our own loved ones without them. 

Over the last 50-plus years, our volunteers have donated approximately four MILLION hours of service and raised more than 25 million dollars to support patient care at GBMC!

So please, when you meet a GBMC or Gilchrist volunteer this week please take the time to say, “thank you” for all they do.

Donate Life Month

April is Donate Life Month, which brings awareness to the need for organ and tissue donors and honors those who have already donated. Earlier this month, I was privileged to be part of a very special ceremony at GBMC. We and The Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland held a flag raising ceremony to honor the memory of donors as we celebrated their gifts of life to others.

Today is the National Donate Life Month Blue and Green Day. The goal is to bring awareness to the importance of organ, eye, and tissue donors and to celebrate those that have saved lives through their donations. I hope that you all wore blue and green!

Every ten minutes, a person in the United States is added to the national organ donation waiting list, which has approximately 114,000 people on it. One person’s donation can make a huge difference for the people on this list. A single tissue donor has the potential to improve the lives of 50 people and one organ donor can save up to eight lives!

Please remember that you have the power to save lives. April is the perfect time to register as a donor if you haven’t already. Those wishing to register as an organ, eye, and tissue donor can do so at the MVA or at www.donatelifemaryland.org.

Helping our SAFE & DV program…
I want to thank everyone who participated in our fourth annual “Walk a Mile in Their Shoes” event. We had close to 500 participants and we raised more than $90,000 for our Sexual Assault Forensic Examination (SAFE) and Domestic Violence (DV) program! Last Saturday, under beautiful sunny skies, participants walked a mile around GBMC’s campus to shed light on and show support for an extremely important issue for women and men of all ages. Click on the image (left) to watch a video summary of our event.

Registered nurses in GBMC’s SAFE program are specifically trained and certified by the Maryland Board of Nursing to provide care for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence of all ages in a confidential, non-judgmental atmosphere. At no cost to the patient, these nurses focus on empowering survivors to begin the healing process, in addition to working toward ending sexual assault and intimate partner violence in the community.

This year, our team decided to change the name of the event to “Walk A Mile in Their Shoes” to reflect that our healthcare system, and our SAFE and DV program, treats patients of all ages, genders, and ethnicities. When MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center’s pediatric program closed last year, GBMC immediately decided to create a child abuse team to fill the gap in services for children. It was the right thing to do. We couldn’t walk away from the need to care for and protect the most vulnerable segment of our population…children.

Prevention is key to putting an end to sexual assault and intimate partner violence. Our SAFE team has worked hard to expand across our healthcare system and into the community, and our primary care and emergency department teams have been trained on the signs of abuse and the steps to take when they see red flags.

The success of this year’s event would not be possible without the support of our generous sponsors, donors, and walkers. I was really impressed to see many of the football players from Stevenson University came out to support our program.

We understand the necessity of our Walk a Mile event and I am proud that GBMC continues to be a leader in helping the victims of sexual assault and domestic violence and in educating the community to reduce these attacks. I want to thank Dr. Fred Chan and Bonnie Stein and our committee members, along with the GBMC Philanthropy Department, Marketing Department, our Volunteer Auxiliary, and all parties, who worked together to make this year’s event another success!

We want to hear from our employees…
Every year, we ask our people to complete our Employee Engagement Survey. This year, the theme is Let's Get Better Together, and our goal is to have 80% (or more!) participation.

We need to know what you think to make the GBMC HealthCare system an even better place to work. We know we have the best employees at GBMC, Gilchrist, and GBMC Health Partners and we can't wait to hear your feedback!

Earlier this week, you should have received the survey link in your employee email. The survey is open through Monday, April 29, and it will only take a few minutes to complete. I ask that all our employees complete the survey. Please respond honestly, as the survey is completely CONFIDENTIAL. If you include additional comments, these will be shared with your manager, but your name will not be given.

Thank you for helping us make GBMC an even better employer. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Angela Wilson, anwilson@gbmc.org

Thank you so much for taking the survey.

Walking with a Purpose

The numbers tell the story. One in three women and one in six men in the United States have experienced sexual violence in her or his lifetime. These are not just numbers, though. They are real people – mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents, spouses, friends – whose lives are forever impacted. For this reason, our Sexual Assault Forensic Examination (SAFE) and Domestic Violence (DV) Program is expanding to care for more survivors, including a growing number of children.

I am writing about this in the blog this week to ask that you consider participating tomorrow and register NOW for the Walk a Mile in Their Shoes event! Online registration closes at 2 p.m. TODAY, but in-person registration WILL BE AVAILABLE tomorrow prior to the start of our event.

Learn more about the program by clicking the image below and watching Valerie Weir, BSN, RN, FNE-A/P, CMSRN, SAFE & DV Program Coordinator, discuss how to stop teen dating violence and sexual assault on BMORE Lifestyle.

Please click here to register before 2 p.m. today! I hope to see many of you walking with a purpose tomorrow!

Remembering Those Who Served
Last Saturday, Gilchrist held its second annual Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day Celebration honoring the brave men and women who served during the Vietnam War. Hundreds of Vietnam War Veterans attended the event, which provided a day of healing for them and their families. It also gave others in attendance the opportunity to thank those who served and give them the welcome home that they deserve.

Gilchrist is proud to honor and support those who have served in the United States Armed Forces and has honored thousands through their salute to service and pinning ceremonies. Over 10 percent of Gilchrist’s hospice patients are veterans. Gilchrist’s Welcome Home celebration honors the veterans in their care and in the community, recognizes the unique needs of these veterans, and thanks them for their sacrifice and service to our country.

In addition to Vietnam War Veterans, the Welcome Home Celebration had several extraordinary Iraq War veteran speakers who shared their messages of hope and healing. Captain George G. Forrest, a community hero who saved many of his soldiers’ lives when he served in Vietnam, was the emcee. Other speakers included: Cathy Y. Hamel, MA, President of Gilchrist, Lt. Diane Carlson Evans, USA-Army Nurse in Vietnam, Founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project, and the first woman in U.S. history to spearhead a campaign to place a national monument in Washington, D.C.; Senator John Astle, USMC-Marine, Vietnam veteran and sponsor of state legislation, and Governor Larry Hogan who signed a bill in 2015 that established March 30 as Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day in Maryland.

Congrats to Gilchrist for hosting this great event and thank you to all those in attendance for your service!

Let’s Go O’s!

Yesterday was opening day at Orioles Park at Camden Yards and I was graciously invited to the Oncology Services Opening Day Luncheon Celebration, which has become a wonderful annual event that brings joy to our oncology team and their patients. The food (hot dogs, mac and cheese, pretzels, salads, etc.) was delicious and I really enjoyed the singing of our National Anthem by Rocelle Feria, RN!

Connecting the Addicted to Treatment

GBMC has just completed its first year of the SBIRT program. SBIRT, which stands for Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment, is as an evidence-based, comprehensive, integrated, public health approach to the delivery of early intervention for individuals with risky alcohol or drug use, and the timely referral to more intensive substance abuse treatment for those who need it.

Over the last year, we have screened every adult who has come through our Emergency Department (ED) for addiction. If they screened positive, we have offered them a brief interview with a peer recovery coach; someone who has had an addiction and is in recovery. The peer recovery coach provides non-clinical services intended to aid patients with getting into treatment. The coaches work as part of the ED team to provide education about the risks of the unhealthy behavior and, if indicated, help the patient get to a recovery program with a warm handoff.

GBMC was asked by The Maryland Department of Health to participate because screening helps to identify those at-risk individuals who have not previously sought substance abuse services. Research has shown that a brief intervention helps some people change their behavior around substance use, even when they are not thinking about changing. Please join me in thanking our peer recovery coaches:

Daron (Ron) Brodie – Community Outreach Peer Recovery Coach
Latanya (Tanya) Hill- Peer Recovery Coach (PRC)
Jessica Pieper- Peer Recovery Coach (PRC)

Thanks to Our Physicians!
Today is National Doctors’ Day, when we reflect on the hard work of our physicians and thank them for their dedication.

To celebrate Doctors' Day at GBMC, we had breakfast earlier this morning and those physicians in attendance could visit several wellness stations. This afternoon, we are holding an ice cream social in the physicians’ lounge as another way to show our appreciation for their tireless efforts.

So, as we celebrate National Doctors’ Day, please join me in thanking our physicians for all that they do to drive us closer to our vision: To every patient, every time, we will provide the care that we would want for our own loved ones.

Improving Our Emergency Department

GBMC has an outstanding Emergency Department and the community knows this. While the region is seeing about the same number of ED visits as last year, our ED visits have increased by 10%! This is because people know the quality of our care and that we are working to become the healthcare system where every patient gets the care we want for our own loved ones. Emergency Medical Technicians and ambulance drivers know that we are welcoming to them and that we are actively working to improve our efficiency every day.

We also know that we need to make changes to our physical plant. From all the sounds coming from our Emergency Department concourse, you can tell that there are renovations taking place. We started this work a few weeks ago.

The changes are designed to reduce delays in admitting patients by improving flow. Stacey McGreevy, our Vice President of Support Services, Russ Sadler, our Manager of Capital Resources and their teams have been working hard to make the transition as easy as possible for our patients and employees.

The Emergency Department Entrance renovation will allow for wider hallways, greater patient privacy, a re-designed registration area, and improvements to overall workflow to provide better patient through-put during the registration process. By relocating the main registration desk, creating more efficient triage rooms, and adding a secondary waiting area for triage and registration, we will be better able to register patients without having long lines resulting in cramped hallways. The design team included physicians, nurses, and registrars.

I want to thank everyone involved with these renovations as well as our patients and employees for their patience while we improve.  The target date for completion of the project is June 30, 2019.

THANK YOU TO OUR SOCIAL WORKERS!!!
March is National Professional Social Work month and I want to extend my appreciation to our fabulous GBMC social workers.  I am always amazed by the resourcefulness and fortitude of this group. Our social workers deal daily with the many challenges that come with the social determinants of health and without them, our system would come to a near standstill.
They have helped GBMC attain low readmission rates and have designed a system that assures that our patients with advanced illness receive the continued support they need after they leave our hospital. Please take the time to say, “thank you” for all they do!

P.S. March 29 is Doctors’ Day – do you have a physician you’d like to honor or recognize for exceptional care? If so, please go to https://www.gbmc.org/doctorsday

Celebrating Patient Safety Awareness Week

This week is Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 10-16).  This annual recognition is meant to urge the public to learn more about healthcare safety and for hospitals to share their work on patient safety and safety culture. The goal is for healthcare systems to improve patient safety while developing lasting partnerships among staff, patients, and the community.

Safety is at the core of our vision. We owe it to our patients to keep them free from harm when they are in our care. We have come so far in eliminating error, but we still have so much to do.

We have worked hard to create a just culture, in which we begin from the premise that humans will make mistakes and they should not be punished unless they are consciously violating safe practices. We console those who make an error and we coach those who drift away from safe practices. We build systems to catch human error so that the mistake doesn’t reach the patient. A good example of this is scanning all medications to make sure that the drug has been ordered by a provider and verified by a pharmacist to prevent giving a patient the wrong medicine.

We are delighted to work in partnership with our patients. Patients and family members play an important role in preventing harm. At GBMC, we educate patients on their disease processes, we teach them about their medications, and we encourage them to ask questions. An informed patient, who is comfortable speaking up, is less likely to experience harm.

Here are some facts that the GBMC family can be proud of:
--We were one of only eight hospitals in Maryland to receive an ‘A’ in The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Grades in 2018. These grades measure how well hospitals protect patients from harm.
--We’ve only had ONE surgical site infection for hip and knee replacement surgeries since January 2016. Prior to that, we had averaged approximately one surgical site infection per month.
--Unit 36 and Unit 58 have been Central Line Associated Bloodstream Infection (CLABSI)-free for over four years.
--Unit 45 has not had a Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI) since 2012 and Unit 35 has been CAUTI-free since 2013.

These results did not happen by chance. We put evidence-based standard work in place to prevent these episodes and we hold ourselves accountable to follow the standard work. Whether staff members have direct or indirect contact with patients, everyone plays an important role in preventing harm. I want to thank all our GBMC physicians, nurses, advanced practitioners, and everyone in our system for their tireless efforts as we work towards zero harm.

Come Out and Walk for A Great Cause!
Did you know that one in three women and one in six men in the U.S. have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lifetime? To raise awareness on this very important issue, we are holding our annual Walk a Mile in Their Shoes event during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

This powerful event, which takes place on Saturday, April 6, is hosted by the GBMC Foundation and presented by the GBMC Volunteer Auxiliary. It’s a great opportunity to educate the community about sexual assault and domestic violence. Participants will walk one mile around GBMC’s campus to shed light on this extremely important issue.

Walk a Mile in Their Shoes, which financially supports our SAFE and Domestic Violence Program, has continued to grow over the past four years. We are proud of the impact that this program is having, and we are grateful for all the community support that allows GBMC to provide these necessary services across the region.

I want all of you to consider walking with us and/or financially supporting the event. For more information, please visit: www.gbmc.org/walkamile

Advanced Practitioners Week
This year GBMC is celebrating advanced practitioners in a very unique way. The theme of the week was “The Resilient Practitioner: Wellness and self-care for those who care for others.” The theme was inspired by the book, “The Resilient Practitioner: Burnout and Compassion, Fatigue Prevention and Self-Care Strategies for the Helping Professions.” The week-included a variety of wellness and resilience-based activities such as: flower arranging, pet therapy, yoga, eating cupcakes, and making essential oil sprays. Today, we ended with a ceremony to honor advanced practitioners who exceed expectations in skill and professionalism. GBMC is the home to more than 150 advanced practitioners who apply their skill and hard work every day to move us closer to our vision. Happy Advanced Practitioner Week!

Someone Who Has Overcome

Last week, we hosted our annual Black History Month celebration. This event honors the culture and accomplishments of African Americans in our society and celebrates the spirit and life work of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with the presentation of the Spirit of King award. This year’s program, entitled “Songs of our Souls: We Shall Overcome,” featured Maryland Delegate C.T. Wilson, along with music from the Milford Mill Academy String Orchestra and Honors Chorale.

After the opening musical numbers, Delegate Wilson began this year’s program with his keynote. C.T. is from Charles County, and was featured in the Netflix docu-series “The Keepers.” He successfully advocated for legislation to extend the statute of limitations in child abuse cases in Maryland. When I first met him a few years ago, I was immediately impressed with his passion to help those without a voice. C.T.’s personal story is one of true hardship and perseverance. Thrown out of his home at the age of 4 by a drug-addicted mom who explained to him, "It's time for you to be a man." His life went from bad to worse. Orphaned at a young age, he was moved from foster family to foster family, and then when he was adopted at age nine, he was sexually abused by his adopter. Somehow, he got through the pain and suffering to build a better life for himself, his community, and his family. Today he is the state's primary advocate in the fight against child abuse and he has sponsored legislation to give child victims more time to file lawsuits against their abusers.

Prior to the start of the event, Delegate Wilson and I spoke briefly about GBMC’s vision of being the community-based true system of care that can deliver on our promise “to every patient, every time we will provide the care that we would want for our own loved ones.” I told him of our work to help victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. I also mentioned that since the closing of Franklin Square Hospital’s Pediatrics department about a year ago, GBMC’s SAFE (Sexual Assault Forensic Examination) program has seen an increase in childhood assault and sexual abuse cases. As a result, we recently created a Child Protection Team, comprised of a pediatrician and social worker, who evaluate and treat all children where abuse is suspected. The team serves as a liaison between GBMC and governmental agencies which investigate child abuse and they educate medical providers and families on the recognition, reporting, and prevention of child abuse. Dr. Michelle Chudow is the medical director of the Child Protection Team and she works closely with the SAFE program team, led by its clinical program manager, Laura Clary, RN, FNE-A/P, SANE-A, to make sure that adolescent victims of sexual abuse or assault get the care they need. Delegate Wilson praised us for our efforts and encouraged us to continue to work to protect children from abuse.

Delegate Wilson’s presentation (click here to watch) was very moving and served as a motivator for everyone present. We all fought back tears because his story is so hard to hear. In the end, however, we all realized his resilience and strength. He told those gathered that he was not looking for pity, but rather a commitment to work for justice for all. I am very grateful that Delegate Wilson came to our event in the middle of the legislative session and shared his story with us. We will not forget it and we will redouble our efforts to help the abused and to educate our community towards the goal of eliminating abuse.

After Delegate Wilson’s speech, we presented the Spirit of King award which recognizes an individual who embodies the spirit and life's work of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and who is dedicated to serving their local community. The winner of this year’s Spirit of King award was Lisa Anglin, care coordinator at our GBMC Health Partners Primary Care – Perry Hall patient-centered medical home. Please join me in congratulating Lisa and all the nominees!

I am grateful to my colleagues on the Diversity and Inclusion Council for hosting this event and helping to bring us closer together. Thanks also to the Milford Mill Academy String Orchestra and Honors Chorale and our Black History Month committee for putting together the outstanding celebration.

A Grand Experiment

As readers of this blog know, Maryland is different from the other 49 states in the union because we don’t get reimbursed from Medicare for hospital services by the national prospective payment system. Instead, Medicare pays hospital rates that are set for all payers by the Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC). The rates vary significantly from one hospital to another.

In the other states, Medicare and Medicaid generally pay below what private insurers pay and hospitals negotiate payment rates with the private insurers, trying to pass the costs not covered (by Medicaid in particular) on to the private insurers. In Maryland, hospitals don’t negotiate rates with private payers because they are set by the HSCRC.

Since 2014, Maryland hospitals have been working to improve health outcomes and the care experience of patients while keeping the annual increase in the cost of care for hospital services below 3.58% (the projected annual increase in our State’s economy). Maryland has succeeded in reducing hospital-acquired conditions and in keeping cost increases below 3.58% annually over the past 5 years.

Beginning on January 1, 2019, Maryland’s hospitals have committed to a new waiver extension. You can read the details by clicking here. The agreement commits Maryland to improving the health of our citizens while controlling the cost of care. A new element to the waiver will be Maryland’s need to reduce the rate of increase for the total cost of care to Medicare beneficiaries relative to the rate of increase in the total cost of care for Medicare beneficiaries in the rest of the country. By the fifth year of this new waiver, Maryland is required to generate $300 million in savings annually. Until this year, Maryland’s performance has been judged based on hospital costs only, but now it will include physician billing, nursing home billing, and all that is included in Medicare Part B billing.

Since hospitals are now responsible for charges outside of the hospital itself, it will be more important than ever to get physicians on board. For this reason, the new waiver will include THREE programs designed to incentivize providers of care to generate better health outcomes at lower costs. The first is the Maryland Primary Care Program (see my blog from Jan. 4 by clicking here). The Maryland Primary Care program will create more advanced primary care practices which are better equipped to keep patients with chronic diseases out of the hospital and as healthy as possible. The other two programs that involve physician leadership in improvement are the Episode of Care Improvement Program (ECIP) and the Hospital Care Improvement Program (HCIP).

The ECIP incentivizes clinical teams to improve outcomes and lower costs for an episode of care, like an artificial hip transplant. Medicare will ‘bundle’ the total costs for a hip transplant and if the team can reduce the total costs, the hospital that the team is associated with will keep a portion of the savings. For example, if the team can eliminate stays on a rehab unit and send the patient home from the hospital with physical therapy, thereby saving the cost of the rehab unit stay, the team will receive a percentage of the savings.

In HCIP, clinician-led groups work to improve clinical outcomes within a hospital stay by designing better processes, using care coordination, and creating better handoffs at discharge. Teams will work to drive out waste, resulting in reduced costs. Hospitals that reduce their costs will keep the savings, thereby increasing their profitability and making rate increases in subsequent years less necessary.

Everyone agrees that the current healthcare system in the U.S. is wasteful and unsustainable. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are using Maryland as a laboratory to see if changing financial incentives can help care providers to transform the system and drive better value to the people we are serving. It is a very exciting time to be in healthcare in our state! The GBMC HealthCare System is a key player in this transformational movement as we continue driving toward our four aims of the best health outcomes with the best care experience and the least waste of resources with the most joy for those providing the care – the definition of what we want for our own loved ones and for every patient, every time. Let’s use the new waiver to move us faster toward our vision.