Hi Team –

 

This Weekly Update comes to you a day early to help kick off Healthcare Heroes Week, our annual week-long celebration of National Nurses Week, National Hospital Week, and ALL of our amazing TriHealth team members and physicians!

 

Following three long years of COVID, we have emerged a stronger, more resilient organization sharply focused on our journey from Good to Great – all in support of our mission to improve the health of our community...The TriHealth Way! Just a few key achievements from the past year alone include:

 

o  Ongoing development of our TriHealth Heart Hospital on the Bethesda North campus, which included the opening of 9 new state-of-the-art procedure rooms in our cardiac cath lab.

o  The start of construction to modernize and transform the Good Samaritan Hospital campus.

o  Construction of our 13th major ambulatory campus in Finneytown with planned opening later this year.

o  Our landmark affiliation with the Cleveland Clinic Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute – making TriHealth the ONLY affiliate in all of Ohio to partner with the nation’s top-ranked heart program.

And why is all of this important? Because it’s positioning TriHealth as the health system of choice in this region, able to consistently deliver on the Triple Aim + One – better care, better health, and better value for the patients we serve, PLUS an enhanced work and practice environment for the people WHO serve – and THAT is what Getting Healthcare Right is all about!! Yet none of it would be possible without you, the absolute best healthcare team anywhere! Because of you, our patients are healthier, the care they receive is safer and more affordable, and the overall TriHealth Way experience we provide is “surprisingly human” – and that is certainly a reason to celebrate ALL of our Healthcare Heroes this week!  

 

So, we have a fun-filled schedule of activities, recognitions, giveaways, and cool prizes in store – all to let you know just how much we appreciate everything you do in service to our patients, our community, and each other! Just a few highlights for the week include: a free meal from LaRosa’s, a free week-long family pass to use the Pavilion health and wellness resources, raffles for $100 gift cards, and many other local celebrations, treats, giveaways, and events! Visit Bridge to review the full rundown of our Healthcare Heroes Week activities, and be sure to tune in to our very special Healthcare Heroes Week Town Hall, livestreamed on Bridge this Wednesday at noon. We’ll be giving away some really great prizes to more than 100 team members…and we’ll be announcing the winners of the Taylor Swift concert ticket giveaway, so don’t miss out! 

 

Building a culture of belonging to foster trusted relationships with our diverse community is a vital part of our work to address disparities and improve health equity, so we can consistently deliver better care, better health, and better value to the entire community, always. One way, among others, we can do this is through active involvement in community events, like last week’s Local12 Health & Retirement Expo. I had the chance to join our teams from Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI+B), Corporate Health, Gastroenterology, the TriHealth Pavilion, Mobile Mammography, Human Resources, Perinatal Programs, Safety, and Alcohol and Drug Treatment at the Expo on May 3, held at the Sharonville Convention Center. In addition to offering on-site preventive screenings, TriHealth also provided education on the importance of working with a trusted healthcare partner to manage chronic illness, and how doing so can lead to longer, healthier, happier lives. Click here to learn more.

 

At TriHealth, partnerships are literally in our DNA. In fact, TriHealth itself is the product of a partnership forged in the 1990s between Bethesda and Good Sam. And through the right partnerships – ranging from our exclusive affiliation with the Cleveland Clinic Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute to our landmark joint venture with Beacon Orthopaedics – TriHealth is able to collaborate with the “best of the best.” This prevents the need to duplicate often costly resources and services to improve care, improve patient health, and improve value, which is what it means to “Get Healthcare Right.”

 

As the latest shining example of the value of collaborating with the “best of the best,” our longstanding partnership with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital enabled the Good Samaritan Hospital NICU to participate in a groundbreaking National Institute of Health (NIH) study on the benefits of an innovative care approach to treating opioid addicted newborns, called “Eat, Sleep, Console” (ESC). ESC provides a function-based assessment of withdrawal severity centered around how well an infant can eat, sleep, and be consoled. ESC prioritizes nonpharmacologic care, including increased family presence, holding, swaddling, and rocking in low-stimulus environments, as first line treatment. The study – which involved more than 1,300 infants across 26 U.S. hospitals – found that the use of ESC significantly reduced both the length of an infant’s hospital stay and the need for medication. Click here to learn more about the benefits of ESC.

 

Last Friday, May 5, the TriHealth Neuroscience Institute held its first-ever regional conference titled, “Stroke Care Today and Tomorrow.” More than 200 clinicians from throughout the region participated in the event, including doctors, nurses, therapists, EMTs and more. The conference featured our own TriHealth neurosciences team, alongside nationally recognized stroke experts who served as keynote speakers. Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the US, and effective treatment requires truly integrated, multidisciplinary care provided in a timely way from every part of a health system – neuroscience and stroke care, vascular surgery, emergency medicine, rehabilitation, inpatient, and sleep.

 

The goal of the conference was to raise awareness around the importance of early detection and timely, multidisciplinary treatment of stroke – all to ultimately improve patient outcomes. In addition to keynote addresses, the conference featured customized learning tracks, including Surgery, Emergency/EMS Care, Rehabilitation and Recovery, and Inpatient and Secondary Stroke Prevention. A big shout out to the stroke conference organizers: Dr. Christopher Zammit, TriHealth Medical Director of Stroke & Neurologic Emergencies; Lori Greiser, MSN, RN, TriHealth Executive Director of Surgical Specialties and Neurosciences; and Kim Schmuesser, MSN, RN, TriHealth Manager of Stroke Quality. Click here to learn more. 

 

In large part due to our commitment to building a culture of safety and high reliability, TriHealth has become accustomed to receiving mostly “A” grades, with an occasional “B” grade, in the biannual Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade assessment. Unfortunately, due to an internal process error in self-reporting, the Spring 2023 Leapfrog grades released last week were below our TriHealth standard and what our community has come to expect. Good Samaritan, Bethesda Butler, and McCullough-Hyde each received “B” ratings, while Bethesda North Hospital received a “C”. In reality, these grades are neither an accurate reflection of our commitment to safety nor an indicator of our true safety performance. Had the data been properly documented and reported, all of our hospitals would have received “A” grades. In addition, all other data points related to clinical outcomes and process of care continue to indicate that TriHealth’s record on safety remains strong and improving. Following a root cause analysis, actions have already been taken to establish more reliable reporting processes incorporating TriHealth Way tools, including independent validation, verification, and checkbacks. This unfortunate outcome serves as an important lesson and reminder that: 1) our Journey to Zero Patient Harm and High Reliability is one of continuous learning and without an end, and 2) that high reliability is required in BOTH clinical and administrative processes and practices to ensure consistently exceptional safety performance and reporting.

 

Congratulations to the nine Cincinnati Public School high school seniors (pictured to right) who graduated last Wednesday, May 3 from our innovative School to Work program. All nine seniors are college bound – including three students who received “full ride” scholarships! And we’re proud to share that ALL nine students have decided to pursue careers in healthcare, ranging from nursing to physical therapy – and they credited their School to Work Program experience as THE reason for their career choices!

 

The School to Work Program is a collaboration between TriHealth and Cincinnati Public Schools, made possible through generous funding from our partners, bi3 and CommonSpirit. The program gives students in their junior and senior years of high school the opportunity to gain real-life healthcare experience through rotating work assignments in various departments and clinical settings at Good Sam Hospital. Since the program’s start in 2019, nearly 60 students have gained experience working in Good Samaritan Hospital’s Emergency Department, Mom/Baby Unit, Labor & Delivery, NICU, Surgicare, Cath Lab, Clinical Engineering, Operating Room, Patient Transport, Inpatient Pharmacy, and other departments. Initiatives like our School to Work Program play an important role in building a “pipeline” of increasingly diverse future healthcare professionals who better reflect the rich differences in our community and in those we serve. This is yet another innovative way we are making a real impact on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging throughout TriHealth, while also helping to close health disparities, both here at TriHealth and within our broader community. A BIG thank you to our School to Work staff and all of our team members who served as mentors to our School to Work graduates during their time with us!!

 

I hope you have a wonderful Healthcare Heroes Week and take full advantage of all the fun activities, events, and giveaways ahead in your honor! Our senior leaders and I look forward to seeing you as we round throughout the system this week. Be on the lookout next week for a gallery of all the fun photos we capture with our Healthcare Heroes! THANK YOU for everything you do to make TriHealth and the care we deliver the best it can be, always!