July 18, 2023
Hi Team –
The past week ushered in several important milestones for TriHealth and our team as we celebrate continued progress in our work to Get Healthcare Right! Here’s the latest roundup of the advances we’re making – all to achieve the Triple Aim Plus One: better care, better health, and better value for our patients, plus a better work and practice environment for our people!!
Getting Healthcare Right
TriHealth Debuts New Finneytown Ambulatory Campus
Eight years ago, we embraced a bold vision to Get Healthcare Right by adopting innovative care and financing models that more consistently deliver the right care in the right place in the right way to achieve the right outcomes at the right cost. This is what we recognized was necessary to, ultimately, achieve the Triple Aim – better care, better health, and better value for every patient, every time.
With a new, sharper focus on keeping the population we serve healthy – rather than simply treating them when they are sick – it became clear that the “right care in the right place” would increasingly be preventive care, early detection, and better management of chronic conditions delivered in the community. This care would be provided in our physician practices, ambulatory care campuses, and in many cases, even in the patient’s home. In these more accessible, convenient and affordable settings, our world-class physicians and caregivers can proactively better manage – and even prevent – illness and disease that, if left unchecked, would typically place a patient in the hospital.
To support this shift in the “right care, right place,” TriHealth has been investing in the planned expansion of our ambulatory care network for more than a decade. Our growing ambulatory network is improving access and allowing TriHealth to deliver care in the most cost-effective setting to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of patients we serve can get the comprehensive care they need to maintain optimal health close to home.
So, when our research showed that the nearly 190,000 residents of Finneytown had significantly more limited and less convenient access to vital healthcare services, like primary care, specialty care, imaging, lab, and emergency care, we went to work on developing plans for our 13th major ambulatory care campus, TriHealth Finneytown. And I’m pleased to share that following a ribbon cutting celebration last week, TriHealth Finneytown’s doors opened to our first patients yesterday!! TriHealth Finneytown offers a convenient, “one-stop-shop” healthcare destination – a fully integrated, multi-specialty care environment – where patients can access all the physicians, specialists, and services they need while receiving “surprisingly human care” with the exceptional TriHealth Way “signature patient experience.”
And following a phased move-in over the next 4-8 weeks, Finneytown will feature adult and pediatric primary care, OB/GYN, cardiology, orthopedics (in partnership with Beacon), urology, ENT, and many more specialties, along with Priority Care, imaging, lab services, and more!! Thanks to our incredible TriHealth Team of physicians, nurses, other clinicians, support staff, and administrators, Finneytown ambulatory campus stands as another major step forward on our journey to Get Healthcare Right for ALL of the communities we serve!
2023 TriHealth Engagement & Magnet Survey Results are In!
Getting Healthcare Right starts with building a great culture and a highly engaged team of physicians, nurses, and other clinical and support staff! To intentionally build a great TriHealth culture, we have invested in our leaders and worked hard over the past eight years to listen to our team members and physicians through engagement surveys, rounding, huddles and team meetings, and then act based on your feedback and suggestions! And this is all to improve our practice and work environment in ways that help you feel your best, be your best, and do your best for each other and all those we serve!!
So, today I am excited to share the results of our 2023 Engagement and Magnet Survey! While many other healthcare systems, unfortunately, continue to struggle with low levels of employee engagement due to lingering COVID challenges, TriHealth is experiencing some of its highest levels of engagement yet! And strong engagement and team member and physician commitment are translating into better care and superior clinical outcomes for those we serve! Here are some of the key highlights and important takeaways from our most recent survey...
- 80% TriHealth overall participation rate – a record high for our TriHealth engagement survey, with TPP Physician participation increasing by 20%!
- Overall favorability is at nearly 85%, far above industry averages – and for the first time ever, team member and physician engagement are now in the top quartile when compared with our industry and other health systems – an impressive milestone in our good to great journey to top decile engagement!
- We experienced positive gains in the two key system improvement priorities we focused on from our last Engagement Pulse Survey – “fostering a culture of open and honest two-way communication” and “confidence that action will be taken in response to survey results.”
- Almost all engagement domains improved, including “Changes in my department have been made as a result of input from team members.”
- Nearly 90% of team members reported a sense of accomplishment in their work at TriHealth and would recommend TriHealth to family and friends needing healthcare.
- And team member responses to, “Communication at TriHealth is open and honest” increased by 5.3%, “I am comfortable discussing concerns with my leader” increased by 3.3%, and “I believe feedback from the survey will be used to make improvements” increased by 4.9%.
In short, you have spoken and we have listened and acted, and TriHealth is better because of it!!! In the coming weeks, your leaders will share your local departmental and system survey results, and facilitate a conversation with you about improvement priorities moving forward. I encourage you to participate in these conversations, celebrate our progress, and candidly share your thoughts and ideas about where we have opportunities to do better. As we kick off our new Fiscal Year 2024, we are more committed than ever to continue to listen to and invest in YOU and our culture to help make TriHealth an even better place to work and practice…. and THE healthcare Employer of Choice in the greater Cincinnati region!
TriHealth’s Cancer Screening Rates Among Best in the Nation!!
One of the most important ways we can achieve the Triple Aim of better care, better health, and better value is with early detection through proactive screenings, such as cancer screenings, which enable us to identify illness earlier, treat it, and save lives. As shared in my last Weekly Update, two examples of this are our breast cancer and colorectal cancer screening practices, which are a vital part of our population health care model. Today, TriHealth completes breast cancer screenings for nearly 85% of our patient population on an annual basis – far ahead of the 72% industry average. And for colorectal cancer screenings, we complete nearly 80% versus 64% for the overall industry…. and we are just getting started!
Because of these impressive screening and early detection rates, TriHealth was recently recognized by UnitedHealthcare (UHC) – the nation’s largest health insurance company – as a national model of excellence for improving health!! TriHealth’s breast and colorectal cancer screening rates were among UHC’s top 10 Commercial Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) in the nation!! What this means is that TriHealth is among the 10 best performing health systems in the nation for early detection – and ultimately, saving lives – and that is a BIG deal!!! And because of our exceptional results, UHC honored TriHealth with their United in Care Service Award, presented in collaboration with the American Cancer Society. The award recognizes ACOs with outstanding cancer screening rates in 2022. This is yet another shining proof point that TriHealth is INDEED bringing better care, better health, and better value to the growing patient population we serve – and that IS Getting Healthcare Right!
DEI+B Leadership Transition
Two years ago, I asked Tashawna Otabil, Vice President of Managed Care, to take on a second critical system leadership role as our Chief Diversity Officer. And since then, thanks to Tashawna’s strong leadership and our amazing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI+B) team, we have advanced our DEI+B work in a number of significant ways, which include:
- Building a comprehensive DEI+B strategy
- Delivering Implicit Bias training to thousands of team members and physicians
- Helping to create a culture where team members feel they have an equal opportunity for a successful career, and
- Setting the stage for the launch of our Center for Health Equity
However, following two years of impressive progress in leading both Managed Care contracting and DEI+B, Tashawna has come to the difficult, but understandable, realization that serving in both previously full-time roles is not sustainable in the long term, given the growing demands of each position. So, she has made the decision to focus solely on her career-long work of leading Managed Care contracting, which we fully support. Jerri Irby, Chief Human Resources Officer, will take on the senior leadership role for DEI+B on an interim basis, while we conduct a search for a new permanent leader.
A BIG thank you to Tashawna for stepping up and agreeing to serve in the senior DEI+B role when the system – and this vital work – needed her leadership most! Because of Tashawna’s and her DEI+B team’s contributions, we are now in a very strong position to accelerate our efforts to ensure EVERY patient and team member feels included, respected, and well cared for, ALWAYS!!
July Team Member Town Hall Livestream, Tomorrow
Please make plans to join us tomorrow, Wednesday, July 19 at noon on Bridge for our July Team Member Town Hall…our first town hall of the new fiscal year! We will review the latest progress and share important updates in our work to Get Healthcare Right, discuss the priorities for FY24, celebrate wins, and as always, answer your questions – with some cool TriHealth prizes for those who join the conversation! Click here to review the agenda. And there’s still time for you to suggest topics or questions you’d like covered during the Town Hall. Simply email TownHall@trihealth.com today and we’ll be sure to add them to the discussion!
As we begin a new fiscal year, we have a lot to be proud of at TriHealth – as this week’s latest roundup shows – ALL because we have the GREATEST healthcare team, anywhere…. and we are getting better every day! Thank you for everything you do, every day, to help us Get Healthcare Right for each other and all those we serve!