Finding Your Way at GBMC

GBMC employees and volunteers have become quite accustomed to finding people who are lost on our campus. Almost every day, I find someone who needs help to get to their destination. Our campus is big, and our buildings are spread out over a large area. Before I arrived at GBMC, the decision was made to name our parking structures after flowers to make it easier for people to remember where they parked. Unfortunately, many people don’t remember their flower. 

When coming for an appointment, patients are often anxious, which makes it more likely that they will lose their way and struggle with signage and on-wall maps. Patients arrive late and sometimes actually miss their appointments, and we staff members often arrive late to a meeting because we are helping people find their way. So, we have been looking to improve wayfinding at GBMC. 

Last fall, GBMC began partnering with an industry-leading mobile application vendor, Phunware, to provide our patients with a blue-dot wayfinding solution to help them navigate to and within our main campus. The app is available for both Android and iPhones for download, free of charge, at the Google PlayStore and the Apple AppStore.

Using the app, patients and family members can get directions from their homes to the closest parking garage to their destination as well as step-by-step directions to their appointment. In addition, our GBMC app gives patients and visitors an opportunity to read GBMC news or connect to social media. Visitors can also input vital information, such as their visitor details, before entering the hospital. 

The addition of the GBMC wayfinding app is another example of our work to use technology to make it easier to access care from us. The app will connect to the patient’s medical record via the Epic MyChart portal which allows our patients to access their appointments, medical information, etc. from their phone. 

Since the launch in November, more than 500 people a month are actively using the GBMC wayfinding app. We continue to work with Phunware to add new features. Share My Location is a feature that will be available soon and will allow patients to share their location with friends/family who would then use the app-provided route to arrive at the location.

We are excited to improve wayfinding on our campus using this app. Have you tried it yet? If not, please visit here to get started.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Thursday, we hosted our annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration, which commemorated Dr. King’s life and vision. This year’s program was shifted to a fully virtual format due to the increase in COVID-19 cases. 

As a nation, we have made progress thanks to the work of Dr. King and others, but we have a long way to go to achieve Dr. King’s dream. 

The theme for our celebration was Hope in Action: The Fierce Urgency of Now, and it featured our keynote presenter, Diane Bell-McKoy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Associated Black Charities. Her message was clear. We cannot rely on the legacy of Dr. King. Each of us must get in action to dismantle systemic racism. 

After Ms. Bell-McKoy’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.  through service to others. The winner of this year’s Spirit of King award was Kirsten Merges, RN, from our NICU. Please join me in congratulating Kirsten for the recognition and thanking her for her generous service in Haiti. And please join me in congratulating the other nominees for their selfless giving to others!

This year we added a new challenge, the MLK Children's Contest, which called on the creativity of the children of our employees, volunteers, and contractors to help us recognize and celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Children submitted their poems, drawings, short stories, or any original creation that helped us recognize the contributions of Dr. King. The winners were:  

First Place: Paige Lynn Morgan (employee: Tracie Schwoyer-Morgan, Palliative Medicine)
Second Place: Anna Boblooch (employee: Stephanie Boblooch, Cleft Palate Program)
Third Place:   Zion Graves (employee: Shannon Graves, Perinatal Services)

Congratulations to all who participated!

I am grateful to Lisa Walker, our Chief Diversity and Learning Officer and to my colleagues on the Diversity and Inclusion Council and to those on the planning committee for putting this event together. And thanks to all who participated in the virtual event.

You can click here to view the recording of the 2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration.

Working Hard to Recruit the People We Need

I have participated in new employee orientation since I arrived in 2010. My job is to welcome our new teammates and introduce them to who we are and the GBMC vision for the future. On Monday of this week, I welcomed more than 100 new employees! We all know the story of how people have left the workforce since the pandemic started. In addition, the U.S. has a significant shortage of nurses that has been made worse by the pandemic. 

We have all been under stress since the pandemic began, and our Human Resources Department has been working very hard to fill all of our vacancies. I asked Anna-Maria Palmer, our Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, to give readers of the blog an update on what we are doing to keep up with our very high turnover and vacancy rate.  

Q:  In your words, how has the current wave of the pandemic changed the GBMC workplace?
We are fortunate that GBMC’s incident command structure and our well-defined critical work systems have enabled us to take hold of the current wave of the pandemic. Our Baldrige work has paid off because we can easily adjust processes to accommodate this new pandemic wave.

A key reason we can adapt our processes to support increased patient care needs is because our workforce embraces our vision statement. Our employees are resilient and dedicated. I see this daily as employees volunteer to pick up extra shifts, so they can help departments with staff absences due to the pandemic. I also see employees who are now working in an alternative work assignment through our Alternative Labor Pool. In addition, our workforce is supporting each other by nominating peers for Peer-to-Peer recognition and Compassionate Caregiver and Art of Nursing awards. 

Q: What's behind the current shortage, and do you have any incentives or initiatives to shore up staffing levels?
As a nation, we are experiencing a nursing shortage, and this is amplified by the current wave of the pandemic. Also, the economic rebound underway in the U.S. has resulted in increased work-from-home jobs. This can be a barrier as we need to attract the people needed for in-person patient care. To combat this, Human Resources is in a continual mode of market surveillance to ensure we are keeping pace with both wages and benefits. We implemented several nursing wage adjustments to include revised premium rates and shift differentials. Furthermore, we have implemented significant referral bonuses for key roles at Gilchrist, GBMC Health Partners and GBMC hospital. We are doing this to incentivize our employees to help us hire new staff.  

Due to critical staffing shortages in clinical areas, the hospital (GBMC HealthPartners and Gilchrist each have their own) has instituted an alternative labor pool. As part of the alternative labor pool, staff will be assigned into clinical patient care roles, given nurse helper duties, or assist in other areas to support hospital operations (pharmacy and distribution). Managers are encouraged to call 443-849-6619 or email alp@gbmc.org to identify their staffing needs. Any employees who meet the outlined criteria in the Alternative Labor Pool program overview document, who are interested in taking a patient care assignment or taking a supportive role can complete the availability form via the following link. 

Q: Is there any bottom line message you want to get out there to folks who may have started to look into a career in healthcare and GBMC?
Healthcare careers have never been as needed or as appreciated as they are today. As a society, we have learned much about the science of healthcare in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Specifically, at GBMC, we are fortunate to have science experts and clinical leadership who have guided us to deliver quality patient care. If you are interested in pursuing a career in healthcare where you can experience career satisfaction and have a positive impact on our community, then please apply to GBMC HealthCare. As an independent community healthcare system with a participative employee culture, GBMC HealthCare is unique from other healthcare employers. Visit here to search job opportunities and apply today.

Q: What do you think it means to employees when they receive support from the community?
GBMC is fortunate that our community partners provide both emotional support and financial support to our workforce. Many messages of patient gratitude are displayed throughout our hospital as a reminder to our employees that our work is making a positive impact in the community. Our patients and patient families are thanking us and inspiring us to continue this great work. This gratitude helps to fuel our employees during the most difficult of times. Also, this same community stepped forward to provide monetary contributions to our Healthcare Worker’s Fund. This fund has enabled us to provide a financial safety net for our employees experiencing financial hardship during the pandemic, as well as provide for increased employee recognition through our Peer-to-Peer recognition program and added resilience programming such as yoga and massages. Our community’s high engagement with our GBMC mission is an important contributor to employee satisfaction. 

I want to thank Anna Maria and her staff for everything they do to recruit the people we need!

Thank You!!
Earlier this week, The Church of the Good Shepperd donated more than 100 meals for both the adult and pediatric Emergency Department day and evening shifts. This was truly amazing, and I know our people greatly appreciated the gift.

I am so grateful to our patients and the communities we serve for their unwavering support and commitment to GBMC. Whether it is providing food to our frontline workers, offering thanks and prayers for our team members, or acting in other ways, big and small, to show their gratitude and their care for our people, it is really inspiring. Thank you!

Will the pandemic ever end?

We in healthcare are all exhausted. The daily stress of caring for many sick people and putting ourselves at risk is taking a toll. And yet, I continue to be amazed with our team’s resilience. Staff come to work every day to treat people in need and to care for them the way they want their own loved ones cared for. 

I was very proud earlier this week to escort Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski to some of our departments that have been the most affected by COVID-19. We visited the adult and pediatric emergency departments and Unit 38, a medical unit that has cared for hundreds of COVID patients. At each stop, the county executive heard from our leaders and thanked our people for their efforts. 

This week, Governor Hogan declared a state of emergency, giving the Secretary of Health, Dennis Schrader, more power to oversee hospitals and other providers to help us get through this latest surge. One thousand members of the National Guard will be deployed to setup more testing centers and to transport patients where regular ambulance services have been depleted. 

Over the past two weeks, GBMC has opened three new testing centers to alleviate the volume of people looking for testing from the Emergency Department (ED). The first, in the trailer outside the ED is for people who present to the ED but who are deemed to not be significantly ill after a screening exam. The second site was opened at our GBMC Health Partners advanced primary care center on Padonia Road. This is for GBMC Health Partners primary care patients. The third, on the ground floor of the Kahlert Pavilion (Physicians Pavilion North) is for any community member who wants to be tested. We have offered our “drive through” site on farmhouse hill to the Secretary of Health in hopes that the State will open a testing center there. 

As you can see, we are using our core competency, redesigning care, to deal with issues as they arise. We have begun to limit elective surgery to free capacity and staff for more COVID admissions and we are building an alternative labor pool to augment our clinical staff if the number of sick COVID-19 patients continues to grow. 

We know that the Omicron variant is much more contagious than the previous forms of the virus and that on average it causes people to be less sick. Over the past three weeks our Emergency Department volume has skyrocketed, but it has dropped significantly over the past 4 days. This mirrors what was seen in South Africa and in the United Kingdom with Omicron, so we are hopeful that we are getting closer to herd immunity.

Many people have asked me over the last several weeks, “what can we do to reinvigorate ‘joy’ at work?”    

Our fabulous Vice President for Philanthropy and Marketing and Communication, Jenny Coldiron has worked with Patty Leaverton, the Corner Shop Manager, to provide snacks to weekend and off-shift clinical staff. Jenny and Greg Shaffer and their marketing and communications team have been collecting expressions of thanks from patients and members of the community for healthcare workers who have made a difference for them. The marketing team came up with the idea for a Wall of Gratitude, located by the former main entrance of the hospital. This will be a place where our community shares words of encouragement, appreciation and thanks for the care and compassion they experienced at GBMC or Gilchrist. I have been reviewing a few of the 360 (and counting) submissions. These letters clearly serve as a bright spot for healthcare workers on the front lines battling the pandemic. If you would like to submit a message please visit here, where you can both submit and read the messages.

By the ED concourse you will find another visual display that will be used to promote messages of encouragement and thanks.

What are other ways for us to increase joy at work?  Please give us your thoughts.

Unit 47 is officially open!

Earlier this week, we held a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open Unit 47 as the new Integrative Care Unit. This unit has moved from Unit 36 to continue its mission of serving behavioral health patients with acute medical problems. Click here to see a tour of the new space. I want to thank everyone responsible for creating this beautiful space where our outstanding staff can better treat those in need. 

Redesigning to meet the (testing) needs of our patients

In usual times, our adult Emergency Department sees 160 patients on a busy day. Over the last week, the ED has been seeing more than 260 patients per day. This dramatic increase is due to the number of people seeking testing for COVID-19 since the Omicron variant has come to Maryland. The increase has overwhelmed both our adult and pediatric emergency department staff. 

When people are significantly ill with a respiratory pathogen such that they are having difficulty breathing, it is very important for us to identify the cause of the illness, so we can deliver evidence-based therapy. It is therefore critical to assure that we have adequate supplies to test patients who may need to be admitted to the hospital. On the other hand, for people who have no symptoms or mild symptoms, knowing the cause is not helpful since we will recommend rest, drinking adequate fluids, and taking over-the-counter medications for pain relief no matter what virus is to blame. I accept that there are other reasons why people seek testing. Many schools are requiring testing for attendance if the student has had an exposure or has any symptoms associated with COVID-19, for example. Others may have a frail elder or someone with chronic illness in their homes and they do not want to expose them to COVID-19. Today, these are not valid reasons to use the Emergency Department. We must leave the staff free to treat those who are sick.  

To help lessen the strain on our ED staff, we are opening three testing sites. Two of them are on the GBMC campus. The first will be in the trailer outside the ED. Here, we will accommodate those who come to the ED seeking testing and, after a screening exam, are judged to not be very sick.   

Beginning Monday, Jan. 3, testing will also be available by appointment on the first floor of the William E. Kahlert Physicians Pavilion North. For more information on these two testing sites please visit www.gbmc.org  

If you’re a GBMC HealthPartners primary care patient, you can schedule an appointment for a COVID test at our Padonia Plus location by logging on to your MyChart account. 

If you have concerns about your health and are not having difficulty breathing or some other true emergency, please contact your primary care provider. To keep yourself and others safe, please act as if everyone you meet is infected with COVID-19. Wear your mask, stay physically distant and wash your hands. Obviously, if you have not been vaccinated or had your booster, please take care of this as soon as possible. You are putting yourself and others at risk if you are not fully vaccinated.

As 2021 ends, I would like to again offer my heartfelt thanks to our doctors, nurses, other clinicians and support staff, for their hard work on the frontlines as the battle against COVID-19 continues. Thank you all for your courage, strength, generosity, and perseverance. 

Additionally, I want to thank our community and patients for trusting us with their medical care in 2021. It is an honor to serve you. 

We should reflect on all the GBMC HealthCare System’s accomplishments in 2021. 

I will never forget the groundbreaking for The Promise Project in September. It has been exciting to see the demolition and site preparation that has happened so far. Construction will continue through 2022 with the grand opening scheduled for late summer of 2023. The Promise Project will create physical space that will make it easier for our staff to get the job done. 

Some of our other noteworthy accomplishments in 2021 included:
--We opened the new Gilchrist Center Baltimore at Stadium Place. This new facility brings state-of-the-art end-of-life care to many in the city including Baltimore’s most marginalized people.
--We had 135 members of our medical staff across 69 specialties named "Top Docs" in Baltimore magazine.  We are honored to have more “Top Docs” than any other community health system.
--Our Nurse Residency Program received re-accreditation with distinction from the American Nurses Association. The program was accredited with distinction by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation in Practice Transition Programs.
--GBMC was recognized as a HIMSS Davies Award winner…AGAIN! This is the third time we have received this impressive recognition!
--Our Primary Stroke Center achieved the 2021 American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® (GWTG)-Stroke: Gold Plus with Target: Stroke Elite Honor Roll and Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll. These awards recognize hospitals that meet specific quality measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients and are a testament to our Stroke Center’s commitment to reliably deliver care according to the latest scientific evidence.
--GBMC was recognized as the #4 hospital in Maryland in US News and World Report Rankings. --GBMC HealthCare was recognized as the best in several disciplines by the readers of The Baltimore Sun! The Baltimore Sun readers named GBMC HealthCare the best in the following categories: Best Hospital; Best Audiologist; Best General Practitioner.
--GBMC HealthCare had 13 nurses recognized in Baltimore magazine's annual “Excellence in Nursing” edition. 

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

We look forward to continuing our work toward our vision of being the community-based true system of care that can deliver to everyone the care that we want for our own loved ones. I will be delighted to see the pandemic fade into the sunset in 2022.  I am so grateful for everything that my GBMC teammates have done in the face of adversity. I hope that you and your families continue to stay safe and I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

Thanks for Being a Part of the Solution…and not a Part of the Problem

The news is buzzing about the increase in COVID-19 cases. This is happening for several reasons. The omicron variant is much easier to transmit from person to person than previous variants. The weather has turned cold, and people have moved indoors where they are more likely to pass the virus from one person to another. We can’t directly affect the creation of new variants or the weather, but we can do something about the third reason why cases are climbing…the number of people who have not been vaccinated. 

Two people died at GBMC earlier this week from COVID-19 and they had not been vaccinated. As I write this blog, we have 10 patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with COVID-19, and none of them have been vaccinated. Of the other 28 people sick enough to be in a hospital bed, only five have been vaccinated. We know that vaccination is the single best strategy to prevent death and serious illness from COVID-19, but we still have too many people who have not been vaccinated. Not only are they putting themselves at risk, but they are putting everyone at risk and they are creating bottlenecks in the healthcare system that are hurting their friends and neighbors, while they are also exhausting nurses and physicians. It is time for the unvaccinated, without a valid medical exemption, to realize that they are part of the problem.  

On Monday, I joined members of county government and leaders from other local hospitals to raise the alarm about the high number of new COVID-19 cases, and how our frontline healthcare workers are facing difficult conditions yet again in the latest wave no one wished they would see. We were united in asking people to get vaccinated so that we are able to meet the healthcare needs of the community. When hospitals are full of COVID-19 patients, people with other diseases run the real risk of bad outcomes while waiting for care.  

In addition to getting vaccinated, it is important for people to get their preventive medical care to keep from getting sick. Everyone should have a primary care provider. They should contact their primary care provider for help when they are sick and only go to the Emergency Department when they truly have an emergency. 

If you know someone in our region who needs a primary care provider, please ask them to contact GBMC Health Partners.

Protect yourself and your loved ones against COVID-19 and the flu through vaccination, wearing a mask, keeping social distancing and washing your hands. These actions will help our healthcare system to preserve valuable resources to provide care for those who need it. Remember we are all in this together!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
I want to extend best wishes for a safe, healthy, and happy holiday season for those celebrating Christmas or Kwanzaa.  Enjoy your time with family members and think about the things that are important in your lives. For those staff members working during the holidays, a special “thank you” for serving others. 

Our People Are Our Greatest Asset

We talk a lot about designing systems to make it easier for our people to get their work done. We realize, however, that it is the people themselves who move us forward. As the population ages, there is an ever-greater demand for healthcare workers. The pandemic has made the situation worse as some have left the field. So, it is more important than ever that we keep our people and recruit others who embrace our mission and vision. 

I and the rest of the Senior Team have worked with Anna Maria Palmer, our Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, and Meredith Barclay, Director of Talent Acquisition, to develop a new initiative that benefits our current employees and helps to attract staff. For a limited time, staff members who refer a colleague who is ultimately employed by GBMC HealthCare, may receive a referral bonus. We’ve selected several hard-to-fill positions to include in this bonus program, including nurses, advanced practitioners, security guards, pharmacy technicians and pharmacists. There are terms, conditions and exclusions, so please click here for more details. Gilchrist has implemented a separate employee referral bonus program.

Our people know what we look for in a good colleague: strong clinical skills, accepting and living our greater values, and a desire to help us achieve our vision.  So please spread the word and help us find great teammates. 

A Physician Titans of Care Retires
Earlier this week, we celebrated the career of one of our most respected and revered Physician Titans of Care; Francis “Bing” Grumbine, MD.

Over the last 39 years, Dr. Grumbine has been known as a superb and compassionate physician and researcher. Beloved by his patients and his colleagues, Bing has had a profound impact on his field, and during his tenure, the status of our gynecology department has grown tremendously. Dr. Grumbine helped launch the careers of some of the region’s best GYN oncologists. He oversaw clinical research protocols in gynecologic oncology and served on countless committees, working tirelessly to assure outstanding clinical outcomes. 

Dr. Grumbine witnessed the evolution in the diagnosis and treatment of gynecologic cancers and helped introduce new laparoscopic techniques in the operating room, including laparoscopic hysterectomy and staging procedures in endometrial cancer patients. He made GBMC the first hospital in the region to perform laparoscopic staging to reduce hospital stays and morbidity and was also instrumental in bringing robotic surgery to the field, leading GBMC to become the first community hospital to perform a radical hysterectomy utilizing robotic surgery.

GBMC has been fortunate to have Dr. Grumbine as such a dedicated physician and colleague. Please join me in thanking Dr Grumbine for all that he has done for GBMC, our staff, and for the exceptional care he provided to patients for more than three decades.