July 01, 2020
Hi Team –
This week marks the beginning of a new fiscal year for TriHealth – FY2021, and the welcome end to the first half of what has been one of the most unsettling and challenging years in our community’s and our nation’s recent history. It also marks the completion of the rollout and initial implementation of our “COVID-19 Financial Recovery Plan” – which mapped out the difficult, but necessary steps we are taking to reduce and realign our costs with the new COVID-19 reality of lower volume and revenue. Last week, all impacted team members were notified and affected stakeholders were informed. In almost every case, impacted team members were gracious and understanding, and expressed a strong desire to explore new opportunities at TriHealth in order to remain with the system. We are now actively supporting these team members to do just that with the goal of helping them transition to new and comparable roles within TriHealth.
New Fiscal Year, New Normal. Over the past four months, we have moved from preparing for the COVID-19 surge, to managing through it, to reopening, to recovering economically, to now settling into our new normal or “maintenance state,” where COVID-19 remains a part of how we live and operate – and how we continue our work to get healthcare right for our community. Now nine weeks into our “reopening,” volumes are plateauing where we predicted at between 90 to 95% of our previous baseline. While we’re seeing some services approach pre-pandemic levels, many are not rebounding, including inpatient admissions, emergency visits, surgeries, and urgent care, which are now running at 85% to 95% of volumes experienced just five months ago. Additionally, the risk of regional spikes and a second COVID-19 surge has become a reality in many communities across the nation, including in our own Hamilton and Warren counties. These concerning trends affirm that the proactive steps we have taken – as difficult as they were – were the right ones to ensure we remain strong, both clinically and financially. This will allow us to continue to battle the virus and any subsequent surges from a position of strength to keep our community safe and healthy for as long as it takes to find a vaccine.
As we turn the page on FY2020, we begin the next chapter in our new normal, where we will remain vigilant about mitigating and, if necessary, responding to a second surge, while also doing what it takes to get back to the business of getting healthcare right. To do so, our Command Center will closely monitor the regional community spread of COVID-19, as we continue the necessary precautions to keep each other and our community safe – including social distancing, consistently wearing PPE, practicing good hand hygiene, and testing and quarantining when feeling sick.
As we settle into this “new norm,” TriHealth, along with other areas hospitals and health systems, will also be transitioning from the current COVID-19 “Screening Stations” to “Self-Screening” for team members and physicians effective July 13. Patients and visitors will continue to be screened by our TriHealth staff at Screening Stations within our hospitals and major ambulatory campuses. By now, all team members are very familiar with the screening questions and temperature steps and are more than capable of completing self-screenings. To prepare for this transition, all team members are required to complete the WBT20: COVID-19 Self-Assessment Screening in LEARN by July 10. This simple, online training will teach you how to accurately self-screen and provide the required documentation. If you haven’t done so already, please take the time to complete this training at your earliest convenience.
New Opportunities to Get Healthcare Right. As we begin a new fiscal year, we do so with a renewed commitment to lead the region – and emerge as a national model – in getting healthcare right by delivering better care, better health, and better value, while achieving greater team member and physician engagement. This journey requires TriHealth to function more like an integrated system than ever before, so we can transform our care and financing models from disease centric to health centric. Doing so will allow us to provide the right care at the right time, delivered in the right way to provide the best clinical outcomes and improved health at the right cost…every patient, every time!! In the coming weeks, I will be devoting Weekly Updates and Town Halls to a discussion of the system’s FY2021 goals and major strategic initiatives that will guide our important work to get healthcare right in the year ahead.
Our New Back-to-Business Communications Cycle. As part of our COVID-19 “new norm”– and our efforts to get back to the business of getting healthcare right – we’ll be transitioning back to a less frequent cycle for many of our major system communications. Over the last four months, daily and weekly communication has been essential to enable us to be fully informed – and to understand the “why” – as TriHealth rapidly adapted many aspects of our operations in response to the challenges and demands of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because we now better understand – and are successfully adapting to – this pandemic and its effects on our business and our care delivery models, starting next week, we will move to a MONTHLY frequency for our Town Halls and All-Leader Meetings – and Dr. Joseph’s COVID-19 videos will transition from daily to once a week. So later today, we will conduct our final WEEKLY Team Member/Physician Town Hall live stream – and we will host the next MONTHLY Town Hall later in July. Weekly Updates will continue, but beginning next week, we will return to the practice of hospital presidents and other local senior leaders including their local updates with my Weekly Updates. And I would encourage you to continue to regularly visit Bridge for the latest information on COVID-19 and related topics.
Let Freedom Ring. With the upcoming 4th of July holiday weekend occurring in the midst of one of the most turbulent times in our nation’s history – we are reminded that while our country was founded on the premise of ensuring civil rights and liberties for all, this vision remains a work in progress some 244 years later. And it’s up to each of us to do our part to stand up for what is right, guided by our Pledge of Allegiance…as ONE nation, under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice – and EQUALITY – for ALL! If you were unable to join us in last week’s Town Hall conversation on race and equality, you can watch it on Bridge, or click here to view a shorter, edited version.
I hope you and your families enjoy a very safe, healthy, and happy holiday weekend filled with a sense of hope and promise that the second half of 2020 – and the start of FY2021 – will bring better, brighter days marked by recovery, renewal, and lasting reform.
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