November 14, 2023
Hi Team –
The holiday season is just around the corner, with Thanksgiving less than 10 days away. And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the season – a time of giving thanks and creating special family memories – than by making it easy for you and your loved ones to share a meal together. So, as announced last week, TriHealth is excited to, once again, do just that, by providing every TriHealth team member, physician and volunteer with a Honey Baked Ham Co. holiday meal, compliments of TriHealth.
Be on the lookout later today for an email from The Honey Baked Ham Co. containing your personalized QR code for your choice of a ham, a turkey breast or two large sides and a pie. As we start the holiday season, this is just one more way we are expressing our deep gratitude – and “Thanksgiving” – to the best healthcare team anywhere! Visit Bridge for all the details.
Getting Healthcare Right
TriHealth Invests Nearly $20M in New Inpatient Beds to Elevate Safety and Further Enhance the Patient Experience
In August 2022, we launched the first phase of our evidenced-based clinical redesign initiative to adopt best practices, processes and technology to further strengthen and support nursing, perioperative services and patient throughput. And through this work, we have achieved a number of wins, which are enabling TriHealth to more consistently deliver the “right care, in the right way, with the right staffing to produce the right clinical outcomes.” And these include:
- Filling many vacant positions
- Significantly reducing use of and reliance on external agency nurses and other roles
- Improving patient flow to eliminate "bottlenecks" and delays in care
- Shortening unnecessary length of stay, resulting in more timely transfers from our emergency departments and earlier discharges to home
As shared at our October Team Member Town Hall, we are now ready to launch the next phase of this work – Clinical Redesign 2.0 – which is aimed at providing enhanced ancillary support of nursing (EVS, Food and Nutrition, Patient Transport, etc.), in order to free up charge nurses to more consistently be available as a clinical resource as well as continuing to invest in our nursing leaders. With a goal of elevating the patient experience and improving the care environment for our nurses and frontline staff, Clinical Redesign 2.0 will also leverage technology and automation whenever possible to improve care and simplify and streamline work and work processes.
And one such technology investment is inpatient bed replacement. I'm excited to share that TriHealth will replace nearly 800 patient bed frames and mattresses with state-of-the-art Stryker beds at Bethesda North, Good Samaritan, Bethesda Butler and McCullough-Hyde Memorial hospitals, beginning this month and concluding early next spring! Bedside nursing staff and hospital leaders participated in a comprehensive new bed evaluation process that included Stryker and several other manufacturers, which involved on-site demos and trials. The Stryker beds were the overwhelming choice of our TriHealth team!
This investment in new inpatient beds in all of our hospitals represents another significant step forward in our journey to Zero Patient Harm through standardization and use of proven technology! The Stryker beds include advanced features, such as integrated bed alarms and “bed lowering” capabilities, that will make our care safer and more reliable. At the same time, the new beds will enhance the experience of the patients we serve and the team members who serve – furthering our commitment to foster a culture of safety and reliability at TriHealth.
Some of the key benefits of the Stryker beds include:
- State-of-the-art controls that will be standardized across TriHealth's four hospitals, simplifying and streamlining bedside care responsibilities and improving reliability. So, nurses and other team members will no longer have to remember different sets of controls or alarm codes from unit to unit or room to room due to different models, makes and ages of beds
- The capability to lower beds to 11 inches off the ground, making it safer for patients to get in and out of bed
- A “patient turn assist” feature that requires fewer team members for patient repositioning and movement, which means reduced likelihood of “skin breakdown,” better skin care and more time to provide care
- Enhanced bed alarms which offer added patient safety and cannot be deactivated or defeated by patients or their families
Over the next few weeks, we will share more details about how we plan to train staff and phase the replacement of existing beds with Stryker beds in the inpatient settings of our hospitals.
Leaders Off-site at LDI Tomorrow (November 15)
As a reminder, our 800+ TriHealth leaders will be off-site on Wednesday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center for our 27th Leadership Development Institute (LDI), themed Accelerating to Excellence: Investing in Our People and Our Patients to Deliver on Our Promise of Surprisingly Human Care. Expect to hear from your leaders soon after the LDI about what they learned and how they will be working with you to strengthen and “hardwire” TriHealth Way practices related to peer interviewing, selection and onboarding to improve retention and ultimately “Get Staffing Right.” Thank you for your support of our leaders as they take this time away to become even better servant leaders for you and for those we serve.
Quint Studer Podcast
Nearly nine 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. And this is how we, ultimately, achieve the Triple Aim – better care, better health and better value for every patient, every time. And through our unwavering commitment to bring this noble vision to life – ONE Team, TriHealth STRONG – today our care is among the best in the nation!! Our patients are healthier, their experience is better, services are more accessible and care is more affordable by every measure!
Recently, I had the pleasure of representing you and TriHealth on a podcast with TriHealth Trustee and Healthcare Plus founder, Quint Studer. I had the opportunity to share insights and lessons learned from our journey to Get Healthcare Right with healthcare leaders who, like TriHealth, recognize our industry and how we serve our communities is in need of reform. Click here to listen.
Native American Heritage Month
November is National Native American Heritage Month honoring the culture, traditions, languages and histories of Native Americans, including Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and affiliated Island communities. As with other under-represented populations, healthcare disparities exist within the Native American community due to factors such as socioeconomic conditions, access to healthcare services and other social determinants of health. Statistics show that the average life expectancy of Native Americans in our nation is 12 to 13 years shorter than White Americans, and this community disproportionately experiences higher incidences of preventable illnesses, such as diabetes, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and malignant neoplasm.
Many organizations, such as the Indian Health Services, are working to address the social determinants of health and health disparities among the Native American community. At TriHealth, we recognize the importance of seeing, hearing and valuing the unique circumstances of each of the communities we serve, and our Center for Health Equity is sharply focused on supporting our efforts to do so. To that end, the DEI+B team is actively building a relationship with Cincinnati's Urban Native Collective to learn how TriHealth can contribute to the health and healing of our local Native American community. Learn more on Bridge.
Update on November Team Member Town Hall
Due to the shortened Thanksgiving holiday week next week, we will not hold a November Team Member Town Hall. Please make plans to join us for our December Team Member Town Hall on Tuesday, December 12 at noon on Bridge. In the interim, I plan to share a brief review of our wins, accomplishments and ongoing work to Get Healthcare Right from the past month in next week’s Weekly Update. Stay tuned and don’t forget to email your questions to TownHall@trihealth.com to include in our December Town Hall discussion.
At the heart of our work to Get Healthcare Right is our greatest asset – our people, ONE Team, TriHealth STRONG! Thank you for your unwavering commitment to our patients, our community and our quest to be the very best we can for all those we serve, always!
I love the ONE team, TriHealth STRONG idea.
Posted by: Spencer Ingerson on November 18, 2023
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Great informative and useful information. Big thumbs up for the new patient beds.
Posted by: Jennifer Johnson on November 14, 2023
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