January 31, 2017

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I hope your New Year is off to a great start and you are making the most of this fresh opportunity for growth and new experiences! At TriHealth, we’ve had a productive start to 2017, with many meaningful signs that we are making encouraging progress on our journey from good to great.

Last week, we completed our 3rd Leadership Development Institute (LDI), which brought our entire TriHealth leadership team together (more than 800 participants) for two full days to learn the next set of TriHealth Way best practices focused on interviewing, selecting, on-boarding and retaining great team members. Your leaders will be meeting with you over the next three weeks to share highlights from the LDI and discuss plans for introducing and hardwiring these new practices – which include expanding team member involvement in selecting new team members through “peer interviewing.”

At the LDI, we also reviewed some of the early wins we are seeing on many fronts due to our investment in, and adoption of, the TriHealth Way of Leading, Serving & Delivering Care. A few of those impressive wins are noted at the end of this newsletter.
Our new TriHealth Way best practices, combined with our Operational Excellence Initiatives, have helped us begin to reverse the declines in patient satisfaction, team member engagement, financial performance and volume that we were experiencing in recent years due to the rapidly changing and more challenging health care environment.   

However, it’s important to recognize that in order to maintain these gains and continue to operate from a position of strength, we must not let up on our commitment to achieve operational, cultural and financial excellence in all we do – at all times.
During our recent series of New Realities conversations, we discussed our industry’s many new challenges – including reduced reimbursements, volume shifts from inpatient care to outpatient and post-acute care, increased competition for patients, and payments linked to patient outcomes. All of these challenges are accelerating, so it’s more important than ever that we stay the course in spite of improving performance. The “new norm” for health care is one of continuous change and adaptation – and an ongoing commitment to seek out and implement new and better ways to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.

While this work isn’t easy, we are making encouraging progress and it is already positioning TriHealth as a regional leader for getting health care right during this time of unprecedented change and transformation. Just 18 months ago, we were lagging all of our regional peers with respect to volume, revenue growth and operating margin, but at the end of fiscal year 2016, we were the ONLY regional health system to show improved year-over-year performance. This is no accident!
The efforts underway throughout the system to implement a patient-centered and integrated system strategy, build the TriHealth Way, strengthen team member and physician engagement, and demonstrate operational and clinical excellence in all we do are an unbeatable combination for long-term success!   

Thank you for all you’ve done to understand, embrace and adopt new ways of thinking, behaving and leading – it’s making a tremendous difference! Because of you, our journey from good to great is moving from a promising opportunity to a proven reality! I look forward to working with you in the year ahead to accelerate this reality even further for the benefit of our patients and each other. Keep up the outstanding work!


JANUARY TRIHEALTH HIGHLIGHTS

• TriHealth and Xavier University formalize exclusive, 10-year collegiate health and wellness affiliation
• TriHealth set system record in Dec. 2016 for highest monthly cash collection – $138,100,000
• Dec. 2016 and fiscal year-to-date (YTD) financial performance ahead of budget ($8.9 Dec. actual vs. $8.8 Dec. budget & $30.8M YTD actual vs. $23.9M budget)
• Volume declines stabilized – FY17 YTD Highlights:

• 0.9%: Acute Admissions
• 0.8%: Total Surgeries
• 5.9%: TPP Encounters
• 3.5%: ED Visits
• 6.7%: Net Patient Revenue

• TriHealth Pavilion achieves perfect score (100%) and highest standard of excellence from Medical Fitness Association
      o Based on evaluation of 200+ standards, policies, and protocols
• Healthcare Solutions Network (HSN), (a partnership between TriHealth and St. Elizabeth) was accepted into the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) Track 1 as an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) serving more than 50,000 Medicare patients regionally for a 3-year term, effective 1/1/17