December 14, 2021
Hi Team –
This past weekend brought to our region some of the worst and most destructive weather we have witnessed in decades. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted by the deadly storms that devastated our neighboring states of Kentucky and Indiana as well as Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee. For those looking to join TriHealth in providing aid and relief to survivors and families of victims, please visit the American Red Cross or the Hoxworth Blood Center.
Fran DeWine, Ohio First Lady, Visits TriHealth to Promote Early Childhood Literacy
Yesterday, I had the privilege of representing TriHealth in hosting Ohio First Lady Fran DeWine at Good Samaritan Hospital as part of her statewide tour to promote early childhood literacy. Research shows that 85% of brain development occurs during the first three years of life, so it is vital that TriHealth, as the largest provider of maternity and primary care pediatrics in the region, play a leadership role in educating and encouraging parents and caregivers to read to children as soon and as often as possible. So, a few years ago, we implemented the groundbreaking “Early Learning City Program” to educate new parents on the importance of reading in fostering early brain development. This program provides parents with a “brain bag” full of books and useful parenting tools in the hospital after birth or at their first well-visit with a TriHealth pediatrician. And our pediatricians have integrated regular assessments and needed reinforcement and possible interventions into well-visits during the first four to five years of a child’s life.
First Lady DeWine’s Imagination Library program – in which children from birth to age 5 receive a free, new book each month – aligns with and supplements our efforts to put more resources and knowledge in the hands of new parents to enable them to spur brain development in their children. We are thrilled to partner with the First Lady as yet another step in our journey to Get Healthcare Right for every patient of every age across our community.
TriHealth Recognized as Industry Leaders for Commitment to Diversity
Sadly, the COVID pandemic has revealed serious disparities and inequities in healthcare, making our work to deliver more accessible, equitable and inclusive care more important than ever. TriHealth’s longstanding commitment to advancing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and our investments to strengthen our culture while fostering greater trust are now being recognized on national and local levels. Last Thursday, TriHealth received Modern Healthcare Magazine’s Top Diversity Leadership Award at their annual gala. The award recognized TriHealth as one of 10 major U.S. health systems that are setting the standard and leading the way in advancing DEI. As a model for inclusive healthcare that reflects the rich diversity in our community, TriHealth was recognized for the meaningful progress we’ve made on a number of DEI fronts, including:
- Increasing diversity in leadership, which includes hiring women or people of color for 70% of our senior leadership positions over the past 18 months
- Closing healthcare inequities through our population health work and partnerships with IHI and Press Ganey to better understand and close gaps in care
- Partnering with and supporting minority- and women-owned companies
- Fostering greater provider diversity through our partnership with the historically black college, Meharry Medical School
- Creating new “talent pipelines” for the next generation of healthcare workers through our own unique initiatives such as BOLD (Building Our Leadership Diversity) aimed at developing future leaders internally and the School to Work program in partnership with bi3
- Educating our leaders and team members on foundational cultural initiatives such as Implicit Bias training and the REAL (Race Ethnicity and Language) project
A big shout out to Tashawna Otabil, our Chief Diversity Officer, the DEI team and the entire organization for this much-deserved recognition!
And a few weeks earlier, Dr. Thomas Shockley, our newly appointed Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Bethesda North region, was recognized at the "Real Men of Honor: A Salute to African American Men" awards ceremony for his outstanding contributions to the field of medicine and his support of the Greater Cincinnati community. This annual award honored Dr. Shockley and four other African American professionals and leaders for their commitment to making a difference in the community and for inspiring change. Congratulations, Dr. Shockley, on this well-deserved and prestigious honor, and thank you for all you do to promote a culture of inclusiveness and equity in your practice!
While there is still much to be done to foster greater inclusivity and more equitable access to healthcare, we celebrate these external validations and the meaningful work we are doing together which is resulting in better care, better health, better value and an improved healthcare experience for every member of our community.
TriHealth Recognized as Top ACO in Ohio by UnitedHealthcare
Our mission-critical work of adopting value-based care and financing models to deliver on the Triple Aim Plus One – better care, better health, better value, plus an enhanced practice and work environment for our physicians and team members – has been recognized once again, now by UnitedHealthcare (UHC). The nation’s largest health care insurance company, UHC named TriHealth the top accountable care organization (ACO) in Ohio for its leading performance in quality gap in care closure in calendar year 2020. TriHealth providers and their care teams closed nearly 80% of the care gaps identified for our UHC members last calendar year. While this recognition validates that our population health infrastructure is working, more importantly, it means our patients are healthier and their ever-changing healthcare needs are being met. We are identifying diseases earlier when they are easier to treat which enables us to focus our resources on preventing disease progression and unnecessary ED visits and hospital admissions in our highest risk patients. In short, this recognition is demonstrated proof of our ability to consistently deliver the right care at the right time in the right place to produce the right clinical outcome at the right cost.
COVID Updates
As scientists and infectious disease experts learn more about the emerging Omicron variant, Delta-fueled COVID transmission continues to surge – actually the second surge of this fourth wave. Nationally, new COVID cases have increased 46% since last week with hospitalizations also on the rise. Here at TriHealth, our COVID inpatient census is at its highest point since early October’s first surge in this wave and our COVID-related need for ventilators has increased over the past week. Forecasting models predict a continued increase in new COVID infections for the next six to eight weeks. Encouragingly, we are experiencing an uptick in vaccination rates locally and nationally, in part spurred by the latest concerning news of the Omicron variant. Vaccination remains our best path to herd immunity, reducing the threat of variants and moving from “pandemic” to “endemic” state over time.
Facing this latest surge in the fourth wave, our amazing frontline caregivers and leaders are again relying on our “playbook” of proven COVID surge and capacity management practices and staffing strategies. These battle-tested measures include daily review of scheduled elective surgery cases requiring admission, utilizing inter-system transfers between our hospitals to help load balance inpatient capacity, and increasing clinical collaboration within our EDs to more efficiently triage, treat and discharge patients. We have already implemented an enhanced version of the Helping Hands program in our EDs, infusion centers and select night shift inpatient nursing units to ensure appropriate staffing in these critical areas. We are also prepared to open as many as 28 additional beds at Bethesda North, Good Samaritan and Bethesda Butler hospitals. And we are ramping up clinical and support staffing for these new beds and other high-volume areas by internally “recruiting” experienced “helping hands” team members, while continuing our bold recruitment and retention efforts to attract and retain the talent we need to ensure we never turn away a single patient.
Supporting Our People: Special COVID SERVE Bonus Paid December 10
As we manage through the second surge of this fourth wave, I’m reminded again how amazingly dedicated and resilient our team members and physicians have been since the onset of this pandemic, now nearly two years ago. And so, last Friday’s payment of our Special COVID SERVE Bonus to our team members and physicians could not have been more appropriately timed. Full-time team members received $500 to $1,200 based on years of service, with pro-rated payments to part-time team members, all as a tangible expression of our leadership team’s deep appreciation of your selflessness, courage and “stepping up” when asked throughout this pandemic.
In all, TriHealth has invested more than $30 million over and above existing salaries and benefits to help support the financial, physical and emotional well-being of our team members and physicians. In addition to the COVID SERVE bonus, these bold initiatives and incentives include:
- Last year’s Heroes Bonus paid out in December of 2020
- A gift of Appreciation Station points for becoming vaccinated
- The “Relax and Refresh” Paid Time Off (PTO) gift of up to one week of PTO
- Re-introduction of the Helping Hands and Vaccine Support Programs
- Enhanced wellness services
- Repayment of up to $5,250 in federal student loans
- Increasing the PTO sellback maximum for Calendar Year 2022 up to 120 hours
- A temporary moratorium on PTO bank maximums until the end of January 2022
- Mass transit vouchers for team members who rely on public transportation to and from work
At TriHealth, our people are our most valued asset – you make us great!!! And our investment in YOU – our team members and physicians – remains our highest priority, enabling you to deliver on our promise to Get Healthcare Right for all those we serve!