Hi Team –

 

Annual Open Enrollment for 2024 benefits kicked off yesterday and runs through Friday, October 27. This is your once-a-year opportunity to review and adjust your benefit elections to best meet your family’s health and wellbeing needs in the coming year.

 

Click here to download and review highlights of what’s new and what’s changing for 2024. This includes a number of significant Total Rewards benefits enhancements, such as our new paid parental bonding leave benefit – 100% funded by TriHealth, optional short-term disability buy-up, a new Delta Dental “Major Plan,” and more! While this is a “passive” enrollment, please be sure to review your benefit options carefully and make any necessary changes before the deadline. Visit Bridge for complete details. 

 

Getting Healthcare Right is all about delivering the right care in the right place to produce the right clinical outcomes for the right cost. And foundational to this work is getting staffing and support of our people right! 

 

While healthcare systems across the nation continue to feel the impact of severe labor shortages brought on by the COVID pandemic, TriHealth has worked hard to mitigate this impact on our people and on the quality of care we deliver to our patients. Through very deliberate, proactive efforts, we’ve developed and implemented innovative new ways to get staffing and team support right. This includes inpatient, emergency department and peri-operative care model redesign and throughput improvements, and our successful work to reduce reliance on agency nurse staffing by more than 75% over the past six months. It also extends to “growing our own” talent (talent pipeline development) and investing in the career and professional growth for our own people.

 

In today’s very competitive labor market, we can neither afford to wait for the right people to come to us, nor risk losing the talented staff we already have. So, we are adopting innovative and bold new approaches to “growing our own” to ensure that TriHealth stays fully staffed with the best people to provide “surprisingly human care…” to all those we serve. And we’re doing this in a number of ways that are paying off!

Building a strong pipeline of clinical talent. TriHealth is blessed to have the Good Samaritan College of Nursing and Health Science (GSC) as an important part of our system. GSC has served the community for more than 125 years with academic excellence in healthcare education. In fact, many of our own TriHealth nurses and leaders are proud GSC graduates — including my aunt who graduated in the 1940s and went on to serve as an RN at Good Sam.

 

Tasked with accelerating our work of “getting staffing right,” TriHealth, Good Samaritan Hospital and GSC are making major investments in the College to train future healthcare professionals and bolster frontline staffing, which will ultimately ensure better care and service for our patients and a better work environment for our people. These investments include tripling the number of GSC nursing graduates over the next five years – growing from about 100 graduates annually to an anticipated 300 graduates by 2028.

 

Additionally, in FY24, GSC will launch three new programs of study – LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse), Radiology Technology, and Surgical Technology. At the same time, GSC will expand its already-successful MA, STNA and online BSN programs. TriHealth and GSC are also working together to develop advanced loan assistance and incentive programs for GSC students and graduates who pursue career opportunities at TriHealth. And we are already experiencing a number of early wins, thanks to these innovative workforce development efforts and investments: 

 

Supporting the career and professional growth of our own people. In addition to expanding the pipeline of clinical professionals, TriHealth is also committed to ensuring our own people have the opportunities they need – professionally, academically, and financially – to grow and excel in their careers at TriHealth. From personal career path development and counseling to school and work opportunities to tuition assistance and loan forgiveness, and so much more, we are proud to fully support our people – every step of the way – to reach their career goals.

 

In fact, hundreds of our nurses, leaders, and other team members who joined TriHealth in entry-level roles have advanced in their careers because of this commitment. The following are just a few examples:

Ashley Wurlzelbacher started with TriHealth as a PCA, graduated with her ASN, and became a charge nurse, then completed her BSN at GSC, and was just promoted last week to assistant nurse manager at Bethesda North Hospital.

 

Josh Webster began his career at TriHealth as a PCA/monitor watcher, graduated from GSC this year, and now serves as an RN in the Good Samaritan Hospital NSICU.

 

Elizabeth Van Kerckhove started on L&D as a unit clerk/PCA, graduated from GSH nursing school, and then became a nurse on neuro at Good Samaritan Hospital, and is now an RN at Bethesda North Hospital.

 

 

And in the year ahead, we’ll be redoubling our efforts and investments to ensure TriHealth remains the BEST healthcare organization to join, to advance in your career, and to experience many different and interesting jobs in a variety of settings – hospitals, ambulatory centers, shared services, physician practices, and more – all so you never have to leave, and more importantly, never want to leave!!

 

By developing our own people and growing the number of future healthcare professionals through GSC, we can ensure we have the right people who are ready to serve in our hospitals and care settings in the right way – The TriHealth Way – all to provide the right and best care to our patients, always. Stay tuned for more information about our progress in future Weekly Updates and Town Halls.

 

TriHealth Pharmacy Solutions (TPS) is an innovative division of our system’s Pharmacy Service that supports a unique patient population which requires dispensing and monitoring services for specialty medications. These are typically high-cost medications used to treat complex, chronic, and rare conditions that oftentimes require ongoing monitoring for safety and efficacy.

 

I’m excited to share that in August, TPS achieved specialty pharmacy accreditation from the Accreditation Commission for Healthcare (ACHC) for its quality management program. And last month, TPS successfully completed a two-day specialty pharmacy re-accreditation survey from the Utilization Review Accreditation Committee (URAC). In fact, the URAC survey resulted in zero deficiencies and a recommendation for full accreditation with the surveyor stating that TPS is one of the best programs they have ever surveyed!!

 

This is TPS’s second three-year accreditation through URAC and the first through ACHC. Specialty pharmacy accreditation benefits include patient and provider satisfaction through gathering, monitoring, and improving quality measures, as well as “center of excellence”-like differentiation with payers and manufacturers.

 

A BIG shout out to Amy Cobb, Vice President of Pharmacy Services, TPS, and our entire pharmacy team for your hard work and talents that led to these significant achievements!! Dual specialty pharmacy accreditation demonstrates TriHealth’s commitment to maintain the highest level of patient care and will ensure continued access to specialty medications from various manufacturers – another shining example of what Getting Healthcare Right is all about!

 

Our people are what make TriHealth great for those we serve and those who serve. And continuing to invest in the physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing of our team members and physicians is a top priority. So, I’m pleased to share that in response to team member suggestions, we have recently invested in and opened a new fitness facility on the Good Samaritan Western Ridge campus. With the addition of Western Ridge, TriHealth now offers five fitness rooms (Arrow Springs, Butler, McCullough-Hyde, Norwood, and Western Ridge), in addition to our three fitness centers at Bethesda North Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital and TriHealth Baldwin. All of our fitness facilities are managed by the TriHealth LifeStyles team and are free for team members to utilize – all to help support and encourage our people to make the most of their health and wellbeing!

 

And while you’re working out at our LifeStyles fitness rooms and centers, don’t forget to take advantage of our new LifeStyles Wellbeing Platform to track your workout progress – and much more. Visit Bridge to learn more and sign up!

 

While we know we have the very best healthcare team anywhere, it’s always rewarding when our community recognizes it too! I’m pleased to share that three TriHealth leaders, Steve Gracey, TriHealth Chief Legal Officer, Jeremiah Kirkland, President and Chief Operating Officer of Bethesda Butler Hospital, and Sr. Sally Duffy, SC, TriHealth Board of Trustees Secretary, were recently recognized as among Cincinnati’s best leaders – across all industries!!

 

Last week, I had the opportunity to cheer on Steve (pictured third from right with his wife, Leslie Ann, along with Dr. Thomas Shockley and Jenna Moran) when he was recognized with a C-Suite Award in the Chief Legal Officer category from the Cincinnati Business Courier. The C-Suite Awards honor top-level executives who’ve shown outstanding leadership and led stellar performance at Greater Cincinnati businesses and nonprofits.

 

And Jeremiah was selected as one of just five 2023 “Men of Honor – A Salute to African American Men,” sponsored by the Abercrumbie Group. The Men of Honor Awards celebrate extraordinary African American men who have succeeded against all odds and achieved special greatness. Jeremiah follows two other accomplished African American leaders in the TriHealth system who were previously recognized, Dr. Robert Collins, TriHealth Board Trustee and Dr. Thomas Shockley, Associate CMO and Chief Health Equity Officer. We look forward to celebrating Jeremiah at the Men of Honor Awards Ceremony on November 18.

 

Finally, Sr. Sally received the Mother Cabrini Award last Friday from the Su Casa Hispanic Center of Cincinnati at its 26th Anniversary Awards Dinner and Silent Auction. Su Casa, a program of Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio, is the primary provider of social services to the Hispanic/Latino community in Greater Cincinnati. Sr. Sally was recognized for her tireless and compassionate leadership in support of self-sufficiency for the poor and vulnerable in the Hispanic/Latino community.

 

A BIG congratulations to Steve, Jeremiah, and Sr. Sally for these well-deserved honors recognizing their exceptional leadership and values-led commitment to SERVE TriHealth and the greater Cincinnati community!

 

And speaking of serving our community, I want to give a BIG shout out and THANK YOU to our DEI+B and TRIBE teams, along with all of our TriHealth team member volunteers who came together last Saturday for our Community Clean Up Day at Roberts Academy in Price Hill. In partnership with the Hispanic Chamber of Cincinnati, our hardworking volunteers landscaped, cleaned, painted, and refreshed the school grounds in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

 

Thank you to all who have generously donated to our One Campaign so far! We continue to see positive momentum as we enter the “home stretch” of the campaign.

 

If you have not already done so, please consider joining me and thousands of our TriHealth team members and physicians in pledging to support one (or more) of our three corporate giving priorities – United Way, ArtsWave, and our Foundations. All those who donate online – in any amount – are entered into a system raffle where a new winner is selected each week to win a really cool prize! We’ve already given away exclusive tickets to Bengals and Reds games, Broadway in Cincinnati shows, the Cincinnati Zoo and Kings Island. And this week, as you’ll hear from Chad and Ryan in this video, we are raffling off a dinner for two at the Montgomery Inn Boathouse!

 

Making a difference is easy! Simply visit TriHealth.com/One to help positively impact the lives of our team members and the community we serve!

 

At the heart of everything we do at TriHealth is our shared commitment to continually improve the health and wellbeing of our community, our patients, and our people! THANK YOU for demonstrating in so many ways your unending ability to CARE!!