September 01, 2016

Hi Team --

It’s hard to believe we are already nearing the end of summer, but we’ve certainly made the most of it here at TriHealth!  I hope you’ve found time to take off and enjoy this beautiful season, making some lasting memories with family and friends.

In the spirit of ending summer on a light note, following is a brief review of the past month’s highlights:

• Joint Commission Annual Surveys End with a Bang!  The third and final highly successful TriHealth Survey was completed this month at Bethesda North with NO conditional findings!  Only 25% of hospitals achieve that outcome and we did it three times in a row over the past eight months, thanks to the exceptional talents and hard work of our entire TriHealth team. Great job!

• TriHealth System News:  We’ve had a number of exciting new happenings across the system this summer, with a few recent items related to patient care worth noting.  In late July, we celebrated the completion of the first phase of renovations for the emergency department at McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital, which doubled the size of the ED, providing our Oxford community patients with a more efficient, modern emergency care environment.  We also welcomed three new cardiac care physicians to the Heart Institute who were formerly associated with Christ Hospital:  Dr. Caples, Dr. Shea and Dr. Thoresen.   And both Bethesda North and Good Samaritan received national recognition for clinical care excellence.  Good Samaritan won the Beacon Silver Level Award for Nursing Excellence and Bethesda North won the 2016 Lantern Award for ED Excellence.  Our thanks to the dedicated clinical care, operations and nursing teams at both hospitals who made these achievements possible!

• The TriHealth Way – Our Journey from Good to Great, Off to a Strong Start!  This summer, we turned up the heat on our efforts to establish the TriHealth Way of Leading, Serving and Delivering Care – and you’ve let us know the efforts are paying off!  In July, we completed our first quarterly Pulse Survey and the results showed an encouraging 20-percentile point improvement in team member engagement compared with last year’s engagement survey results!  We also heard from many of you that the changes underway are making us better – and we’ve only just begun – so expect many more good things to come!  Thank you for embracing these changes and helping us build The TriHealth Way!  Ultimately, it’s you – our people – who make us great, and with this start, there’s no limit to what we will accomplish!

• TriHealth Way of Serving Launched Across the System.  In August, we kicked off efforts to establish a consistent and exceptional “signature” TriHealth Way of Serving.  Some of these efforts include daily nurse leader rounding with purpose on all patients, post-discharge calls to our ED, surgery and hospital patients to assess recovery progress and seek feedback about ways to improve the care experience, and investments in team member training to create a WOW TriHealth first impression for every person we serve.  In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be getting all team members actively involved, so stay tuned. 

• Mark Your Calendars – Important Fall Events Coming Soon:
  • Team Member Forums, Sept. 12 – 27: Next month we begin our fall series of Quarterly Team Member Forums, and I hope to see each of you there.  Once again, live sessions will be held at every major TriHealth location across multiple shifts, with live video streaming options available for remote participation.  Click here to view the full schedule.
  • United Way Campaign, Sept. 19 – Oct. 28:  We’re getting ready to show the community just how much we care during our 2016 United Way Campaign.  This year’s campaign goal is $600,000 and the theme is Serving Our Community. Each year this campaign provides the perfect opportunity to give back to all those who put their trust in TriHealth to help improve their lives, and we can’t wait to make this our must successful – and fun – campaign yet!  Look for more details, including information about this year’s new 30-Day, Winner-Take-All Step Challenge, on LinkNet.

There’s no team that works harder than our TriHealth team, so as we head into the Labor Day holiday weekend, I hope you make the most of this well-deserved opportunity to kick-back, relax and celebrate the end of summer!  Thank you for continually going above and beyond to make TriHealth a great health system for our team members, physicians and, most importantly, our patients!