A few weeks ago I asked you to share stories about our caregivers providing Wow! moments for our patients. Well, we have our very first one and it comes from UMass Memorial — HealthAlliance Hospital. While treating a patient in their emergency department (ED), caregivers noticed that the patient’s family was homeless and had no relatives living nearby. They had little financial resources and appeared hungry. Once their family member was admitted to our hospital, the HealthAlliance Hospital ED caregivers (Deb Hazel, Jessica Lopez, Anita Tatro, Emily Palumbo and Sandy Couture) all contributed their own money to buy dinner for the family. The group also gave the family money for breakfast in the morning. Thank you for your kindness to this family.

Remember, I want to hear your Wow! stories. We have created this email address wow@umassmemorial.org for you to share them. Please include the name of the person and unit creating the Wow! moment, and as much detail as possible. We will highlight some of these stories in our upcoming blog posts.

Outlook improves  

Because of your commitment we are on target to meet our goal for ideas submitted in FY 2015. I was very happy to change our status from Red to Green. Thanks for your support!

As you may have heard, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has improved UMass Memorial Health Care’s outlook from negative to stable. It would be easy to focus on our financial performance as the key reason for the upgrade, but we have accomplished a lot more than that. The continued success of UMass Memorial is inseparable from the invaluable input from you, our front line staff, and your willingness to step up and voice your opinions on how we can do better. You have led the charge and generated 20,000 ideas through our idea system, allowing us to work smarter, reduce waste and eliminate redundancies. All of this while focusing on the patient as the center of all we do. My hat is off to you!

Epic opportunities    

These are indeed “Epic” times for UMass Memorial. Now that we have selected Epic as our enterprise-wide electronic medical record (EMR) system, we need motivated and skilled individuals to join the Epic Project Team.  These are permanent positions and an excellent opportunity for you to be a part of a transformative event in the history of our organization. I ask that you please apply by October 5.  You can find the jobs online by entering keyword Epic. (Note: Internet Explorer 9, Chrome, Firefox or Safari must be used to access the site.) 

ICD-10 just over the horizon      

On October 1 the medical world will make the switch to ICD-10 coding. That is just days away. We’ve been preparing for the switch through training online and in person for several months. Thank you for participating in these programs so we’ll be ready for the switch. I’d also like to thank the teams across our system who have worked so hard to prepare our organization for October 1 and whose expertise and commitment will take us through the transition and beyond.

To provide information and assistance to staff and physicians across our system during the transition, the ICD-10 Support Center will be open October 1 to 16. Here’s how it can be accessed:

• Phone: 508-33-ICD10 (508-334-2310);
• Email: ICD-10FAQ@umassmemorial.org; and
• OurNet: click here or on the “ICD-10 Support Center” link on the top right of the OurNet homepage for useful info and resources.

The switch to ICD-10 will certainly be a big change, but the benefits of the more precise ICD-10 coding are incredibly worthwhile and important to the quality of care we provide our patients. Thanks again to everyone, good luck October 1, and don’t forget to use the services of ICD-10 Support Center.

Idea of the Week    

This one is from UMass Memorial — HealthAlliance Hospital where their Pre-admission Testing team was going through  a lot of patient booking sheets as a result of patient changes. Seems that every time there was a patient change the booking office would send a new sheet.

HealthAlliance Hospital PAT team.

To reduce the paper trail, the team worked with Central Scheduling and the physician offices to get a better understanding of how to change the patient’s appointment if needed. This has led to a reduction in the amount of booking sheets and the associated costs. Eliminating overproduction and extra processing has also increased the caregiver experience. Well done!   

You can now find the Idea of the Week archive by clicking the Idea System tab at the top of this page.

Thanks for all your great ideas and for taking great care of our patients and one another,

Eric