Without a doubt fall is here! I hope you are enjoying the beautiful transformation in colors of the foliage gracing our countryside and in your neighborhoods.

Transformation is a good word, especially in a hospital setting. Our patients expect us to transform their body and mind back to health from whatever physical or behavioral issues are negatively impacting them. In that vein, I am proud to share the next two items with you.

The first is a series of videos that capture the transformative work of our caregivers both from the patient and provider perspective. The videos kick off an online awareness campaign designed to highlight the breadth and depth of our Medical Center’s exceptional organ transplant program. These are very powerful and moving videos that include a courageous personal testimony. Click on the image to view the videos.

The second item I want to share is from a special moment submitted to our Wow! Moments’ inbox. Recently a young patient was admitted to 5 East, the pediatric floor of our University campus. While there a family member explained to Tina Schwartz, the  resource nurse, that the young patient had a family member in the hospital as well, and that the family member was not expected to make it. Tina wanted to make sure this young patient had an opportunity to say goodbye to her loved one.

Tina, Jay Diller, the resource nurse on the ICU where the family member was receiving care,  and the 5 East nurses arranged to bring the pediatric patient to the family member’s bedside. It was not an easy task but the staff followed safety protocols and made it happen. The young patient spent time with her aging family member and was able to say her goodbye.  Her family member died shortly afterwards. By the time nurses returned the patient back to 5 East they had already ordered Child Life and Social Work consults for her benefit.  I want to thank Tina, Jay, and the nurses on 5 East. You represent the best we have to offer.  Thanks also to  Anne Weaver, the nurse educator on 5 East, for submitting this story. Please share your Wow! stories.

We have created this email address wow@umassmemorial.org for  your convenience. 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.

Idea of the Week    

This one is from the UMass Memorial – Marlborough Hospital team. The team leader is Paul Riggieri, and the idea was implemented on July 5, 2015. Their challenge was finding a process to identify which patients are pending discharge who require  diagnostic imaging exams. However these inpatient exams are displayed upon the technologists work list with all  other inpatients. There is currently no means to enter a radiology exam into Soarian with any distinction other than routine or STAT. To fix the the problem the team decided to ask the medical and surgical floors to send a list of all discharge-pending patients to radiology. The Radiology Department now identifies any of these patients who have orders for imaging by attaching an exam modifier that indicates a pending discharge flag and the exams are  expedited.  Well done!

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

While we are on the topic of innovation, I wanted to give you an update on the Innovation Fund. To date we have approved 60 requests for assistance totaling more than $750K. Importantly, many of these requests were truly innovative, spreadable ideas. They include, standardized white boards by nurses; patient and family idea board from 5 East; Emergency Department brochures from Patient Experience; specialized car seats from the Pediatric Orthopedics team and key fobs with clinic information from the Anticoagulation team. You can access the Innovation Fund by clicking the link on the right side of this page.

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

Eric