March 26, 2024
Hi Team –
While Spring may have officially started last week, for many including me, the season’s true arrival always begins with my favorite “local holiday,” Cincinnati Reds Opening Day, which takes place this Thursday. And with renewed optimism and hope for a return to championship baseball in the Queen City, we want to make sure our own winning team is a part of the winning season all year long!
So, in addition to providing every team member with a pair of free Reds tickets to games this season (click here for details), we will also be raffling off a pair of tickets to 25 lucky team members to select games throughout the season, starting with the Reds vs. the New York Mets on Sunday, April 7 – all compliments of TriHealth! Simply click here to enter your name into the random drawing. The deadline to enter is 9:00am this Friday, March 29, and I’ll announce the winners in my next Weekly Update on April 2. Questions about Reds tickets? Email internalcomm@trihealth.com.
Getting Healthcare Right
Recognizing Our TriHealth Physicians on National Doctors’ Day
This Saturday, March 30, is National Doctors’ Day, which provides us another opportunity to express what we feel every day – immense respect, appreciation and admiration for our nearly 1,500 employed and affiliated physicians – the best team of doctors anywhere – and we’re not the only ones who think so! Based on community votes, Cincinnati Magazine has recognized more TriHealth doctors as the region’s BEST DOCTORS than any other health system, and not by a little, by a lot! We had 260+ Top Docs – that’s 120 more than the next closest health system! This is just one of many “proof points” that our community is increasingly turning to TriHealth – and our world-class physicians – for the safest, best and most affordable care in our region. But the most telling indicator of the quality and caliber of our TriHealth physicians is the gratitude shared by our own patients for their doctors and the impact they’ve had on their lives, as expressed in this short video.On behalf of our trustees, team members and leaders, a BIG thank you to our physicians for all they do to help us Get Healthcare Right by ensuring our care is the safest and best it can be – and our patients experience the best health outcomes, always!
Spring LDI and Annual Safety Summit Recap: Hardwiring Highly Reliable Communication
Last Tuesday, our 800+ leaders convened at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center for our 6th Annual Safety Summit and 28th Leadership Development Institute (LDI). Themed Hardwiring Highly Reliable Communication, the LDI and Safety Summit focused on reinforcement and mastery of high reliability and safety practices related to communication. Why the focus on communication? Well, it has been estimated that as many as 80% of all patient harm events in healthcare are directly or indirectly related to breakdowns in communication – a startling statistic and a highly preventable occurrence!!
As a result, we devoted this LDI to helping our leaders better understand the importance of “human factors engineering.” This is an emerging body of knowledge and a discipline that takes into account the strengths and limitations of humans. By incorporating human factors into design of technical tools, systems and processes, we can reduce the incidence of “normal and predictable” human error or failure, all to enhance reliability in communications and all of the processes we rely on to deliver safe and high quality care, always!
We also rolled out an enhancement to our Safety Huddles, which is aimed at anticipating potential harm by adding questions like, “What could go wrong?” and “How could that issue potentially lead to harm for the next patient?” This concept is known as “preoccupation with failure” and its goal is to identify and correct “points of failure” before we harm a patient or experience a breakdown in reliability.
In the days and weeks ahead, your leader will be talking more with you about improvements in our safety practices discussed at this LDI/Annual Safety Summit and how they will be working with you and your teams to provide even safer care for our patients – and a better workplace experience for you.
Since launching our safety and reliability journey to Zero Patient Harm in 2017, we have experienced remarkable improvements in our patient safety performance, largely because of you and your commitment to “first, doing no harm,” which is a core tenet of medicine and healthcare!! Now eight years into this safety and reliability journey, we can celebrate:
- Favorability in our Culture of Safety Survey at 89%, improving nearly 30% since 2015 – and far outpacing the industry standard of 63%. This means nearly 90% of TriHealth doctors, nurses and team members – compared with an industry average of just 63% – believe TriHealth is deeply committed to safety and delivers high-quality, safe care.
- A 215% reduction in serious safety events since 2018 – from 4.85 patient harm events/10,000 days to 1.5 harm events/10,000 days in 2023.
- A 98% reduction in anonymous safety reporting – from 21% to now at just 0.28% – an indication of a “Just Culture” where our team members feel safe in reporting safety events.
- Participation in our culture of safety survey has increased by 50%.
- Downward trending of patient falls, hospital acquired infections (HAIs) and other important safety measures.
- Significant progress being made to introduce innovative new care models to better manage chronic conditions and early detection. As a result, we are well above industry standards with screening and chronic condition management, which is resulting in improved health and lives being saved, while also lowering the total cost of care.
So, what this tells us is that when we excel at using our proven TriHealth Way tools “reliably” each and every day, our patients get better care, they experience better health and we create better value. And by doing so, we fulfill our promise of surprisingly human care delivering exceptional outcomes by seeing, hearing and healing those we serve.
Celebrating Women’s History Month at TriHealth
Our informative, fun and interactive Women’s History Month activities continued last week in honor of the many significant contributions of women at TriHealth and throughout healthcare. Last Thursday, our Employee Resource Group, TRIBE (TriHealth Resource Initiative for Black Employees), hosted a “standing room only” audience for a special panel discussion titled, “Women in Leadership.” Nine TriHealth women leaders shared personal stories and offered advice to aspiring leaders, carrying the torch of TriHealth’s founders, the Sisters of Charity and German Methodist Deaconesses. In case you missed it, click here to view a video recording of this powerful discussion. And, at our March Team Member Town Hall last Wednesday, we learned about and celebrated women who have shaped – and continue to shape – our organization, including Sr. Myra Bradley, Sr. Sally Duffy and Dr. Helen Koselka. Click here to see a short video recap.
Respecting and Celebrating Our Diversity of Faiths
Spring is not only a season of renewal and new beginnings, it is also a deeply spiritual and sacred time for many faith traditions. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan continues through April 9 with prayerful reflection, fasting and traditional meals, just as Christians are preparing for Holy Week, which begins this Thursday and concludes with Easter on Sunday, March 31. And next month, the Jewish holiday of Passover will begin on April 22, commemorating the Hebrews’ liberation from Egyptian slavery.
As a faith-based organization, these holy observances provide an opportunity for each of us to renew our shared commitment to a higher calling and to our noble mission of service to others. So, as we gather with loved ones to celebrate our own faith traditions in the days and weeks ahead, let us reflect upon our "sacred work" and what it means to ALL those we serve and those we serve beside.
Wishing all those who celebrate Easter, a very happy holiday this Sunday filled with lots of fun family traditions!