Hi Team – 

 

I hope you had a chance to participate in yesterday’s fun and informative WebEx Celebration of Juneteenth, hosted by TRIBE, our TriHealth Resource Initiative for Black Employees – as well as the many other Juneteenth events hosted throughout the region last week, including last Tuesday’s Juneteenth Celebrations at Cincinnati City Hall sponsored by TriHealth. And as shared last week, we are already making plans to more formally commemorate and recognize Juneteenth next year, following last week’s landmark decision to officially designate Juneteenth as a national holiday – the first new federal holiday created by Congress in nearly four decades! We’ll share more details in the coming weeks and months as our plans are finalized.

 

With COVID restrictions now lifted throughout the state for vaccinated individuals in non-patient care areas, it is not surprising that we are seeing the R-factor (the ratio of new infections from existing cases) in Hamilton County rise to over 1, indicating the virus is spreading again – but this time in younger populations due to lower vaccination rates. Encouragingly, hospitalizations continue to be low at TriHealth and in the region, an indication that infections are generally, but not always, less severe because they are occurring in healthier, younger individuals. What remains concerning is that even mild infections can cause significant and lasting side effects. Additionally, continued transmission of COVID in the community means an increased risk that new variants will emerge that could be resistant to vaccines. Therefore, it is important that we continue to do our part to prevent the spread of COVID by getting vaccinated and encouraging friends, family, and neighbors to do the same. The increasing R-factor is also a sobering reminder of why it’s critical that all individuals continue to wear masks in clinical areas. Thank you for all you are doing to support these essential prevention efforts! 

 

I’m excited to share that our first cohort of 10 School to Work students (shown with our TriHealth program staff and job coaches) have all graduated – and 9 out of 10 have decided to pursue careers in healthcare! And, we’re thrilled that three students – Moenaysia Brewster, Brandon Johnson, and Andy Velasquez – have accepted part-time positions in Rehab Services, Nursing, and Food and Nutrition here at TriHealth, as they begin their college education. 

 

TriHealth’s School to Work program gives Cincinnati Public School students from Hughes High School real-world work experience and mentorship in the healthcare field. A partnership between Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) and TriHealth, the program provides students with the opportunity to rotate through nine clinical and support departments within Good Samaritan Hospital over a two-year period, all while earning a paycheck and high school credit for applied learning. And the program is expected to quadruple in size in the next year, thanks to the outstanding leadership of Michael Jones, School to Work program manager, and all the department leaders and job coaches at Good Sam who help make the student experiences so enriching and memorable! With growing interest on the part of Hughes High students in School to Work due to our successful launch this year, we will be expanding the program to include up to 40 new students this fall. We are deeply grateful to CPS leadership and the CPS staff for their commitment to the program, and to bi3, Bethesda Inc.'s grants initiative to transform health, for the invaluable funding of this life-changing program along with so many other important initiatives at TriHealth. Learn more about these innovative programs by clicking here! Please join me in congratulating our inaugural School to Work class graduates and wishing them all the best in their future pursuits. Click here to learn more about the program and our impressive first graduates! 

 

In May, we held our 3rd annual Safety Summit as part of our most recent LDI and celebrated the outstanding progress we’ve made since starting our Safety and High Reliability Journey now three years ago. Through consistent adoption and use of newly introduced TriHealth safety and reliability practices, including huddles and standardized high reliability practices, we have been able to:

And as COVID has shown us, our Safety and High Reliability work is more important than ever! This was affirmed by our Safety Summit Keynote Speaker, Dr. James Merlino (pictured right), a practicing colorectal surgeon and Chief Clinical Transformation Officer from the Cleveland Clinic, who shared his perspectives and experiences in leading Cleveland Clinic’s own safety and high reliability transformation. He also spoke about how essential this culture transformation is for all U.S. health systems as we, as an industry, collectively strive to get healthcare right in the new “post-pandemic” world ahead. His informative and inspiring remarks validate and underscore the importance of the journey to “Zero Harm” underway throughout TriHealth, especially as we prepare to begin our new fiscal year on July 1 with a renewed focus on our safety and quality goals. As I stated in our Town Hall