Would You Recommend a Friend to Our Hospital

Running head WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A suspensor TO OUR infirmary? 1 David M. Dowling operations Management I S bulge outhwestern College 20 January 2011 Week 3 The Culture & lineament at Arnold Palmer Hospital Running head WOULD YOU RECOMMENT A FRIEND TO OUR hospital? 2 Abstract In this paper I exit demonstrate the importance of instilling a culture of prime(a) in employees and wherefore its essential to establish a concise mission statement, code of ethics, procedures and processes that employees peck utilize in determine to carry out the hospitals philosophy and mission.I will withal show what systems and processes I would pay off up in a new hospital to acquire a culture of quality in a hospital. The paper will also show some of the processes that the Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida uses to achieve such a high success rate in node satisfaction. The bottom line of this paper is that its easy to claim or show the statement that a hospital offer ups a qualit y service. Its a nonher thing to deliver. Learned and established techniques from this text will dish up an operations manager achieve the desired goal for establishing an environment of quality, excellence and profit cogency.Running head WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 3 INTRODUCTION My Name is Dave Dowling and I am a new employee at the Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida. after(prenominal) graduating from Southwestern College I was looking for a company that I could exercise my new talents as an Operations Management graduate. I was drawn to Arnold Palmer Hospital be attain of their dynamic structure and their compassion and fearfulness for children. First I would analogous to give you a little background on the Arnold Palmer Hospital and why it is such an likeable come in to work. It was founded in 1989, the Arnold Palmer Hospital (A. P. H. is sanctuary of hope and healing for some(prenominal) sick children. It has grown to be one of the largest women s and childrens hospitals in the United States. A. P. H. is a top level 1 childrens trauma facility. The hospital provides tangible services such as neonatal and pediatric intensive do services, pediatric oncology and cardiology. It also provides specialized service such as c are for high risk pregnancies and motherly intensive care. The hospital is rattling proud of its new multi building facility that covers 676,000 square feet and houses some of the finest modernistic state of the art medical equipment on the market today.This awesome facility houses 2,000 of the intimately compassionate and dedicated doctors, nurses and administrators found in any hospital in the United States. WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 4 As part of the management team I was introduced to many of the processes that turn over got been put into place at A. P. H. They have built a culture of quality that is focused on the long-suffering and their family. The mantra at A. P. H. is Quali ty is not honorable taking care of the patient, but also taking care of the family. wherefore is it heavy for Arnold Palmer Hospital to get patient prisement of wellness care quality.Does the patient have the expertise to judge the health care he or she set outs? In parliamentary law to savor the pulse of the hospital and truly be able to assess what services need to be added, deleted or modified. Administrators need to pick out how patients truly feel rough the perplex they had at the Arnold Palmer Hospital. A powerful tool that A. P. H. has been using is the door-to-door survey that captures a patients honest assessment on their experience. Administrators review the assessments on a daily basis. This tool will in allow administrators, doctors, nurses and employees adjust processes to provide patients better services.If patients and families are miserable somewhat treatment, facilities, parking, finding their way around the hospital, the management and hospital admin istrators need to know. They need to know on a daily basis. The executive director provide level at A. P. H. review assessments as they are loaded into the executive dash board on a daily basis. They look at four quadrants of the hospital operation. Services, Quality, valet Resources and Finances. The results of the surveys allow corporate officers to move assets, resources , personnel and changes to that functional areas that need the change.The results can garter hospitals learn how to treat patients the way they expect to be treated. WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 5 Addressing the question, Do patients have the expertise to judge the health care he or she receives. According to (Drain, 2010) Patients do judge the quality of clinical care they receive. However, they base their judgments on far more than the technical interventions, many of which they are unaware. The sweeping overhaul of the U. S. health care system likely will result in increased patient volume s for hospitals and medical practices.As the nation moves toward value-based purchasing, patient satisfaction will become an increasingly important measure of quality. In a 2009 HealthLeaders Media survey, nearly a third of health care executives said that the patient experience was their top priority another 55% said that it was in their top five. All report that patient experience would be a priority in five years. In a 2004 regard of five clinical conditions, two dimensions of patient- relate care stood out emotional remain firm and respect for patients values, preferences and expressed needs.Simply, put, providing support and involving patients in decision making are associated with better outcomes. Good communication between patients and care providers drives confirmatory patient experiences and compliance, which lead to positive outcomes. Patient satisfaction is not approximately making patients happy it is about improving the patients experience to facilitate health and m edical outcomes. When patients are satisfied, believe is enhanced. When patients trust their physician, they are more likely to disclose information, make up advice and adhere to treatment plans.It is very difficult to do this question, regardless if you feel that people have the expertise to judge physicians and hospital on the care they receive or not. One must keep in mind that most people just pauperism to feel that they are receiving the trump out medical care possible and they want to be sure and feel that they are cared for and have a clear roadmap on what is going on with their treatment. WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 6 How would you build a culture of quality in an organization such as Arnold Palmer Hospital?As an operations manager I would break down my plan to develop a culture of quality into three categories, management, personnel and facilities. In order to properly memorise an organization to A Culture of Quality It is important develop a plan a t the management level commencement. The graduation clapperclaw is to establish a code of ethics, mission statement and leadership philosophy for management and first line supervisors. Although Arnold Palmer Hospital empowers all employees to make decisions. A foundation of standards needs to be established in writing as a source muniment for all employees from the top down.This will make it very clear that in that location is ad hoc behavior that is expected from every employee from the CEO to food service. The next mensuration I would take is to establish a mission for the hospital. The goal is to provide quality health care and make the patient experience as pleasant and comfortable as possible. Establish with every employee that to each one patient is an individual and must be respected as a person. People and families tend to not be themselves when they are sick. Every employee needs to rise above their own feelings and focus on why they are in the health care business. Establish in the minds of employees that every patient has the right to comprehensive, compassionate family centered health care service. Every patient and family has a right to be heard with the concerns they have about the care they or their family member is receiving. I would establish a patient bill of rights in order to serve as a guideline for employees to follow and understand. Once rules and policy is established I would therefore implement and put into place the following processes in order to give our employees the means and tools to carry out the desired missions of the hospital board of directors and administrators.WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 7 The first step is to establish a department that will construct a comprehensive survey the patients can hold out in order to capture what their experience was like at the hospital. I would then have the department establish an executive web site that this department can post reports, flow charts, checksheets, S catter Diagrams, pretend and effect diagrams and various statistical reports. This will allow leaders at all levels see what patients like and dislike about their experience.This will allow top levels of management properly direct what processes need progression and change and what assets need to be re-directed to those weak functional areas or processes. In order to jibe that your employees are on board with the hospital philosophy rules and policy must be established to empower employees to make decisions without being promoted to act. And work everyday with the goal of continually striving to improve processes and their specific job duties. I would also establish process improvement teams by department.These are the teams that ensure that data is being captured as problems spring with processes or employees and also reacting to node surveys and tackle what patients see as a problem. And finally I would establish some type of awards program that would reward employees for mak ing the effort of making our hospital a better place to work and a place the patients feel at ease with getting well. As mentioned in the prior paragraphs, I would establish a training program that will instill the culture of quality in every employee. Encourage them to own it and live it.To continually strive to improve processes and that there is always room for improvement. I would also instill that communication is key. Ensure that employees understand that keeping customers informed WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 8 is the number one priority. If you dont have the answer, you will find someone who has the answer. The facility and equipement is also a very important concern when establishing a culture of quality within your hospital. As an operations manager you must ensure that the hospital has the best quality and up to date state of the art facilities and equipment that you budget will allow.Continually work with doctors, nurses, technicians and staff to ensure that operations is doing everything it can to ensure that processes are properly equipped and that patient board, surgical rooms and all facets of the facility are properly supplied, illuminated, marked, and safe. The bottom line is that you need facilities that are state of the art facilities, processes that provide quality healthcare, programs and measures that capture the patients like and dislike about your hospital. But most of all you need to instruct your employees about all the task that need to be accomplished in order to achieve a culture of quality.Constant analysis and caring employees is what make this happen. What techniques does Arnold Palmer Hospital practice in its drive for quality and continuous improvement? The number one technique that A. P. H. utilizes is their comprehensive surveys. Patient survey capture the customers assessments of there experience in the hospital. These surveys will assess customers expectations of the medical services that the hospital i s offering. This survey will be in-depth and will ask a broad(a) variety of questions from the quality of food, staff, accommodations and medical treatment.The most important question is Would you recommend A. P. H. to your friends? Once the surveys are through they are posted they are posted on the WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 9 executive Dash Board which allows continuous monitoring of the problems and the measures the hospital staff are taking to localise the problems. It is important for key leadership and senior administrators to review survey each and every day in order to keep their pulse on the climate of the hospital and its patients.The survey asks specific questions such as respect, access, quality of care and medical staff, was the care coordinated, were you given a thorough explanation of your condition and follow on care. This information will assist employee, supervisors and administrators refine processes to improve the quality that is provided to patients. The new measure are pushed down to the individual department levels to ensure changes are made were the problems exist. A. P. H. management will also take these assessments and compare the against a national benchmark comparison in order to provide the best health care possible.Data is available on how other hospital might handle a similar hump or chanllenge. As mentioned prior, The A. P. H. executive dashboard is a crucial tool in assessing customers opinions about their experience at A. P. H. In order to truly know were we really stand with customers we must capture passing accurate information on how our patients and their families fell about the care that we have provided. It doesnt matter what we think, The solely opionion that truly counts is the patients and their family. Another method is benchmarking.Benchmarking in order to ensure that standards are set in order to establish and maintain specific standards in the specific medical services that it will offer it s customers. The specific services that they focus on are pediatric and neonatal intensive care, pediatric oncology, labor and saving and care for high risk pregnancies. As mentioned prior, the business of caring for people is the business of having highly trained physicians and WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 10 state of the art equipment. This is your service. If you fail to contiunually update processes and benchmark.You will not survive, patients will simply go to better hospitals. Without benchmarking quality of service could slip causing customer dissatisfaction. Another interesting and unique technique that A. P. H. uses is giving senior leadership cell phone and they can monitor and get directly involved with patients and families if there are significant challenges or patients are unhappy or concerned about the service they are receiving. The senior management has taken call on the most trivial issues. The unique part of this story is they dont see these sma ll issues as trivial.This is probably why they rank so high nationwide in customer satisfaction. The hospital also uses various charts. I will briefly discuss the uses of each. The flow charts & Pareto charts are used to give staff and personnel a quick overview of what is happening in the hospital and nationwide. The Pareto charts also focus on searing items and leave less important issues off. This is a good chart to find out what the major problems are. Benchmarking is searing in showing where opportunities exist for improvement. Develop a fish-bone diagram illustrating the quality variables for a patient who just gave birth at A.P. H. Another tool that can be used by operations managers is cause and affect diagram or fish-bone chart. This can assist department heads such as those who are in charge of a post natal unit in a hospital. This chart can help doctors, pediatricians and pediatric nurses take care of mom and baby in a more efficient manner. It chart will identify poten tial causes to problems that that may have occurred in the past. Knowing what causes problems will give employees the ability to WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 11 identify these problems.These charts should be updated as new problems arise and new equipment is introduced to the post labor or neo natal units. Charts like these help us document mistakes and learn from others . Below is a chart I developed to help the nurses and doctors identify potential causes of the most common post natal problems that hinder quality care for mom and baby. Material Quality rooms designed for post natal patients PATIENTS HAVING TO ENDURE CRAMPED ROOMS COMPLAINTS ABOUT OLD EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES Method Processes & classes to lay out parents to go home SPECIAL DESIGNED ROOMSROOMS THAT ACCOMMODATE MOM & cocker WELL LIGHTED ROOMSBASIC sister CARE CLASSE POOR PARENTING SKILLS ACCOMODATIONS FOR LONG TERM STAYSMOMS MEETING MOMS CLASSENO SUPPORT QUALITY MEDICAL SUPPLIES fully grown BROTHER BIG SISTER CLASSESKIDS NOT COPINGPARENTAL BREASTFEEDING CLASS NOT UNDERSTANDING EDUCATED PARENT PREPARED TO TAKE BABY HOME Hospital cant provide care because lack of state of the art equipment NEONATOLOGISTINEXPERIENCEDPEDIATRIC EMERGENCY whole PEDIATRIC NURSESLACK OF SPECIAL SKILLSPEDIATRICS INENSIVE CARE UNIT PEDIATRIC SPECIALISTSNICU CANT DEAL WITH NICU UNITSManpower Quality Doctors, Nurses and specialists machine State of the art equipment & Services EMERGENCIESPEDIATRIC INPATIENT UNIT WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A FRIEND TO OUR HOSPITAL? 12 REFERENCES 1. Drain, M. , MA. (2010). How patient satifaction correlates with clinical quality, Retrieved from http//www. pressganey. com/improvinghealthcare /improvingHCBlog/blogPost/10-04-12/How_Patient_Satisfaction_Correlates_With_ Clinical_Quality. aspx