March 14, 2022
Hi Team –
I am delivering my Weekly Update a day earlier than normal this week to help launch our Team Member and Physician Pulse Engagement Survey (read more below), as well as to acknowledge and reflect upon the second anniversary of COVID-19 in our community. Two years ago this week, as Governor DeWine declared a state of emergency and schools, restaurants and businesses began closing, TriHealth had fully mobilized in response to what would quickly become a once-in-a-century global pandemic that would touch virtually every family. Chief among the many important measures we took was standing up our COVID Incident Command Center to provide real-time coordination and decision making across our system, as well as to share timely communications and updates with our team members, physicians and other stakeholders.
Facing one of the most difficult and uncertain trials in our careers and lives, we relied on our adaptive patient-centered culture and the best healthcare team anywhere to manage through each and every challenge brought on by COVID. While these many challenges have at times felt both overwhelming and unending, we found a way to acquire necessary PPE, ramped up bed capacity, managed through the shutdown of elective procedures and the accompanying secondary financial crisis, deployed life-saving vaccines throughout our community, managed through an unprecedented labor shortage even as Omicron was surging, and, most importantly, served every patient in need while supporting our people at every step along the way. And true to form, our TriHealth Team rose to the occasion at every turn, demonstrating perseverance, teamwork and selflessness, always putting the needs of our patients first.
Over the past two years, we have come together as One Team, TriHealth Strong. And in doing so, we did much more than simply respond to this global public health crisis... we led the way serving as a model for others in Getting Healthcare Right! And as we now begin to roll back COVID restrictions and return to a post-pandemic new normal, we emerge from this two-year global public health crisis as a stronger, more unified and more resilient organization and culture, ready to accelerate our vision of Getting Healthcare Right.
We Want to Hear From You! Take the Pulse Engagement Survey Today
And, foundational to this vision is continuing our work to make TriHealth the place where team members most want to work, where physicians most want to practice, and where the community increasingly chooses to receive its healthcare. Starting today and continuing through Friday, March 25, you will have the opportunity to tell us how we are doing by participating in the 2022 TriHealth Engagement Pulse Survey. In less than five minutes, you can help by providing important feedback on where we've improved and where we need to continue to focus our efforts.
As a direct result of your feedback from last summer’s full Engagement Survey, TriHealth has invested tens of millions of dollars and taken important steps that are leading to an improved work and practice environment for our team members and physicians. These targeted improvements include important investments in our ambulatory network (e.g., TriHealth Finneytown) and specialty programs (e.g., Heart Failure, Bone Marrow Transplant, Precision Medicine, etc.), as well as new investments in our people such as the COVID SERVE bonus, PTO gifts, federal student loan repayment program, market adjustments to ALL team members on top of annual merit increases, and much more!
Later this morning, our survey partner, Perceptyx, will send an email to every TriHealth team member and physician with a personalized link to this brief, confidential survey. You can also access the survey by texting 2022PULSE to 22333. As with every engagement survey, your individual responses remain confidential. We will share the finding and key takeaways for this survey in April. Thank you in advance for your participation in the Pulse Survey!
COVID Update
With the continuing decline in new COVID cases and hospitalizations regionally and here at TriHealth, we announced last week the rollback of a number of COVID safety protocols. As of last Thursday, mask-wearing in non-direct patient care settings became optional. And team members and physicians caring for non-active COVID patients no longer are required to don protective eyewear. However, to help protect our most vulnerable patients, masks will continue to be required in all direct patient care settings. Last week, we also lifted most of our inpatient and outpatient visitor restrictions, which had been in place since the start of the pandemic to minimize COVID transmission. Finally, we announced a rollback on restrictions to large, in-person gatherings. I think you will agree, these important changes are welcome and necessary steps in our return to a post-pandemic new normal… timed perfectly for the start of Spring!
As indicated in the sidebar to the right, new COVID cases continue their weeks-long downward trend. TriHealth’s current COVID inpatient census has lowered to 30 this week – a far more manageable volume compared to where we were just six weeks ago. And new COVID cases per 100,000 population are consistently below 50 per week, down from more than 700 just a month or so ago.
Getting Healthcare Right: TriHealth Finneytown Update
An important part of Getting Healthcare Right is expanding access to care and ensuring that the hundreds of thousands of individuals we serve are able to get the care they need, when and where they need it. With healthcare delivery rapidly moving to outpatient settings, TriHealth has been proactive in building the region’s largest and most comprehensive network of major ambulatory centers – such as Western Ridge, Kenwood, Liberty, and Anderson – which is now able to deliver on our promise of serving every member of our community within a short 15-minute drive. As part of this decade-long strategy, last November, we announced our plans to develop our 13th major ambulatory center in Finneytown – a 57,000- square-foot “one-stop shop” to serve a community of more than 180,000 residents who currently must travel farther than most Cincinnatians for their medical and healthcare needs. And late last month, Springfield Township – home to the future TriHealth Finneytown – officially approved our exciting plans. When completed in mid-2023, the Finneytown campus will offer the full range of primary care and specialty physician practices, urgent care and outpatient diagnostic services to a community that has traditionally been underserved with limited healthcare options. The Finneytown ambulatory campus represents yet another major step forward in bringing our vision to life by providing our community the right care at the right place at the right time to produce the right clinical outcome at the right cost… which increasingly is in the outpatient setting! We plan to break ground on the new campus in April. Stay tuned for more details!
Bethesda North and Good Samaritan Recognized Among “World’s Best Hospitals” by Newsweek
I am thrilled to share a recent BIG win for our team members and our “flagship” tertiary hospitals that represents the latest proof point of the progress we are making in our journey from Good to Great – even in the midst of this pandemic. We learned that Bethesda North Hospital and Good Samaritan Hospital were both honored among the World’s Best Hospitals for 2022 by Newsweek Magazine. This marks the third time in four years that Bethesda North – ranked 327th this year – was honored with this recognition. And for the first time, Good Sam joins this elite list at 299th of over 2,200 hospitals from 27 countries! Hospitals are selected based on publicly reported quality, safety and patient experience data as well as surveys of tens of thousands of physicians from around the world. Considering there are more than 5,000 hospitals in the U.S. alone, and nearly one million hospitals worldwide, this honor is a remarkable achievement and validation of our amazing team members and physicians and our work to Get Healthcare Right.
Team Member Town Hall: Wednesday, March 16 at 12pm
Mark your calendars to join us on Wednesday at 12pm for our monthly Team Member Town Hall, livestreamed on Bridge. We will spend time sharing the latest COVID updates, system wins and the essential work ahead to Get Healthcare Right following two long years of COVID. As always, we will devote plenty of time to answer your questions. And those who participate in the conversation will have the chance to win fun TriHealth prizes!
Every day, there is more and more evidence that this two-year pandemic is coming to an end and beginning to shift to a more manageable endemic state. As we put this pandemic behind us once and for all, I want to thank you for all you have done over the past two years for our patients, our community and one another. Your commitment and passion every day, in every interaction, has provided hope and healing for those we serve... and has demonstrated beyond a doubt why TriHealth is so special in our community!