Celebrating My Anniversary

September 29 marks my 11th year at Children’s Specialized Hospital. I can’t believe it has gone by so fast, and then at the same time it is hard for me to remember a life without Children’s Specialized. I know that sounds ridiculous but our mission and your work has become a part of my heart. When I speak about our work, people often tell me that they hear the love and respect that I have for Children’s Specialized and can really visualize creating a world where all children can reach their maximum potential.

As I look back over the last 11 years, there is a lot to be proud of. We have doubled the number of children we serve and the number of patient care locations. We have redecorated and updated every site or created new locations. We invested in staff, equipment, partnered with families in amazing ways, and improved all of our quality measures. We’ve experienced a huge amount of success. So why do I feel like there is so much more to do?

See that is the challenge – it is never “done.” There are more children to be served, changes in how we provide those services, and children developing new conditions that we never thought we would see in a rehabilitation setting. It is both invigorating and completely overwhelming at the same time. The key is to celebrate the success and clearly identify the work left to be done.

It is an honor to be on this journey with each of you and I look forward to continue to work to ensure that every child reaches their maximum potential.

In The Home Stretch

We are in the home stretch to closing out an incredible 2014. It’s important in any organization to have a strategic focus, and for us we use our annual corporate goals to ensure we are moving in the right direction to achieve our hospital’s vision – to create a world where all children can reach their full potential. You can review our progress at any time by viewing our “corporate goals dashboard.”

Here is a quick snapshot of where we stand today and how you can help us make sure we achieve our goals. 

Press Ganey – Our net promoter score (that’s the question where we ask parents, “would you recommend our services to friends and family?”) is currently at 79.67,  just shy of our aspirational goal of 80. We are still working very hard to make improvements that will help parents consistently rate us with 5s. Our work around a culture of service excellence will enable us to improve this already high score. Our goal is to be the leader in this extremely important area.

Quality report card – We continue to make outstanding progress on many of our quality goals. It appears that we will achieve at least our target goal of 4 out of 7 of the quality indicators and hopefully 5 out of 7. I would say we are on target but we need your help! You play a huge role in helping us achieve one of them – be sure to get your flu vaccine to help us reach our goal of over 90% of all employees being vaccinated. 

Cost per unit (CPU) – We knew this was going to be a very hard goal to achieve this year because we were adding costs by increasing all salaries with the “across the board” increase we did in April, and because of our continued investment in people and technology. Our goal is to achieve a 20% decrease over a 5-year period. To date, we have achieved a 12% overall reduction. 

Combined operating margin – Due to our outstanding increase in the number of children we are seeing, and increased fundraising, we are on track to achieve our goal of greater than a combined 2.5% operating margin with the Hospital and Foundation that we can then invest back into the organization!

Kids served – We are 15.3% above where we were year to date 2013; 2,829 kids ahead for a total of 21,284 kids. We are well on our way to achieve our aspirational goal of 23,872.

Reducing Wait Times – Our goal to reduce the wait time for the first available neuro-developmental appointment is continuing to trend in the right direction. Our aspirational goal was to reduce the wait time by greater than 10%. We have so far reduced the wait time by 23.15%, from 88 days for an initial evaluation to 66 days!

Employee Engagement – I had shared that we are behind in our goal of improving the percentage of sites that had an increase in score surrounding the survey question, “I am involved in the decisions that impact my work.”  Another pulse survey is scheduled soon, but your answers to the blog have made us take a look at this more closely. More to come on this topic and thank you for sharing!

Community Engagement – Our last goal relates to increasing the percentage of activities in our community benefit statement. This is important because we know that eventually the federal government will be measuring that number to determine whether or not we can keep our nonprofit status. Our goal is to achieve a 15% increase over last year. Presently we are on track to achieve this goal, but we need your help in ensuring we are capturing all of the community work you are doing in the CBSIA system. Please let Trish Yurochko know if you have any questions about this. It is so important that we be able to document the work you do above and beyond your traditional scope of work out in the community.

So, as you can see, we are about where we intend to be on most of our goals – making the CPU decrease this year is going to be difficult, but everything else is absolutely attainable. You all have helped make incredible progress on very strong goals. The thing to remember is that many of these goals came directly from the feedback of families (reduction in wait times for appointments and increase in access to care) and our employees. You all have helped position ourselves for the future requirements we know are coming. You should feel very proud of the continued great work.

Setting the Standard in Service Excellence

When I was little we always got our gas from the Schaeffer’s Getty station in Princeton Junction. We could have gone to any gas station, but Mr. and Mrs. Schaeffer knew my Dad and they always greeted us like family when we came in. We didn’t get discounts or promotions, but it was a familiar place and they made us feel special when we came in.

Many of you won’t remember but there was a gas shortage in the 70’s and you were only allowed to buy gas on certain days of the week depending on your license plate numbers. It was very stressful because you had to wait in long lines and make sure you had enough gas to get you from one day to the next.

We still went to Schaeffer’s, even though the situation was very aggravating. Even though we knew it wasn’t their fault and there were circumstances outside of their control; Mr. Schaeffer and his team still kept their commitment to the personal touch and high customer service standards.

Fast forward 40 years later. Health care is going through seismic shifts. You heard recently that Apple unveiled a series of products, including something called iHealth. Given what Apple has done to the iPhone, I can only imagine what technology will come next.

Our world will change. How people want to receive their health care, how they want to partner to care for their own health and the health of their children, and how they want information delivered will all make dramatic changes. Some we can anticipate, and some we can’t even imagine.

During all this change, just like at Schaeffer’s gas station, the constant can be how we conduct ourselves.

Children’s Specialized Hospital has gone through a 6-month process where you have weighed in on what our values and standards of excellence should be. You identified items that are most important to you and our organization, and now we have embarked upon a training program for each of us to attend in order to make sure we all understand what those standards mean and how we will live them. If you have not yet registered for Service Excellence Training, please do so through NetLearning. Here is a list of the upcoming classes for 2014.

There are things that will be completely outside of our control in the coming years. But the item we can control is how we work with each other and our families.

Please let me know, comment below, what you think once you go through the training. I would love to hear if you are excited about the “new” standards and how they will impact our relationships with each other and our families.

Code Red in Hamilton – This Was Not A Drill

In the afternoon of August 25 at our Hamilton site, some employees smelled smoke coming from the suite above. Thankfully no one was injured, but the building was evacuated and a “Code Red” was announced by our employees. 

Thankfully, this incident was relatively minor. But the team at Hamilton did share they are using it as a learning experience. Although Code Red was announced and the building was evacuated, the fire pull station was not utilized, and therefore fire officials were not notified of the situation.

We learned many valuable lessons during Super Storm Sandy, and I just wanted to share the lesson learned from Hamilton’s recent experience.  

As a reminder, when you smell smoke, fire, or have any concern of a gas leak you should:

1. Rescue anyone in the area.
2. Pull the fire pull station alarm to announce the fact that there is a fire emergency. 
3. Announce on the overhead “Code Red” loudly, slowly, and clearly two times.
4. Confine the area by closing all doors as you leave.
5. Evacuate the area.

If a Code Red page has been called, you should, under NO circumstances, re-enter the building unless instructed by the emergency personnel until “Code Clear” has been announced. 

Fall is in the air, but summer memories last a lifetime

As we get thrown into busy Fall schedules and the summer weather fades, before we lose that summer relaxed state of mind I would love to hear about your favorite summer memories. These can be moments that you experienced with friends, family, or even at work. Maybe you want to share a trip or staycation because it was “just that good” and left a lasting impression.   

Some of you may know I am an only child, and one of the few friends I know who still have both my parents alive, well, and living in the home I grew up in. My parents are both retired public school teachers who sacrificed a great deal in order for me to attend college and graduate school, to have a home, and even take a family vacation. We would drive to Maine each summer, and tent for a week outside of Boothbay Harbor. And as my parents got older, they would rent a cottage.

This summer my friend allowed us to use her home outside of Winter Harbor for 5 days. Given the length of the trip, I flew with my parents to Maine. We spent 5 whole days together reading, reminiscing, exploring, and truly being shocked that at ages 85, 77, and 50, respectfully, we still had the ability to be together, celebrating our lives together, and realizing that every time spent healthy and happy is a blessing.

So how about you? Is there a memory you would like to share? It doesn’t have to be life changing, it can just be life affirming. I would love to read your memories in the comments!

Elaine Mustacchio Receives National Recognition

A few weeks ago I shared in the Weekly Wrap Up that Elaine Mustacchio, MSN, CRRN, nurse manager, was notified that she had received a national award recognizing her lifetime of service to pediatric rehabilitation.

For Elaine it was very overwhelming and somewhat embarrassing – my word not hers. See she, like many of us, has the chance to work with our children and sees it as a tremendous honor and gift to help our kids get better.

All of those holidays when she ran around like a crazy person to make sure every kid had a Halloween costume or when she worked with Dr. Burke to make sure one of the babies was wearing their best dress when their new foster parent came to see them for the first time.

She didn’t do any of those things because someone told her to or she had to. She did it because it was part of the healing process; a natural next step to try to get things to normal.

When our kids “age out” she continues to go visit them in their new locations. She’d be the first to say “I am not the only one who does this. Many people do.” And she would be right – that is what makes Children’s Specialized Hospital so special.

I’m so impressed and thankful for the things you guys do without thinking twice—Trish West-Low coming in from her vacation to teach yoga to the kids at camp or Kate Vieni working in a 10-mile run with one of our children in the pain program, for example. Or the hundreds of hours the Trish Yurochko, Ann Marie Santos, Elke Van Hooydonk, and ALL the people who volunteer with Lightning Wheels donate to help those children achieve their personal bests.

All over the state, through the work of each of you, you are extending your work and touching families in a way that give them hope and make it all seem better – even when it may not be anywhere close to what they had hoped and dreamed for their children.

We all celebrate and honor Elaine for this amazing recognition. We are so very proud. And we know it could have been anyone in the Children’s Specialized family – because those are our values, our culture, and who we are as people. That is what brought us to this very special place and why we work so hard to improve the lives of our children.

Are you ready for some football?

You all know that I am a huge college football fan. Yazmin Hatcher, registration representative in Mountainside, suggested that we have a few “Football Fridays.” I love your FUN FAN spirit Yazmin! Every Friday this fall (Sept-Nov) you can dress in your favorite football team gear – college or professional – and of course wear your jeans.

I bet some of you are asking, “Why are you such a big fan?”

I love college football because even at a place like Alabama ─ which is all football all the time ─ the players are still kids. Managing classes, their first time away from home, maybe even their first real love and heartbreak. They are still real people – not superstars like the pros, but just normal folks who happen to play ball.

You see tremendous dedication and work ethic. You also see entire groups of people wrap themselves around the team – an outpouring of emotion with each win or loss.

In many ways I liken it to the work we do here. We rally around the children we serve, cheering their every accomplishment in the face of tremendous challenges. They and their families often have to have super human strength to stare down the life that could be before them and find the hope to believe that with hard work, the victory – however it is defined – can be achieved.

 

I love all of the different emotions you feel when your team, or child we are privileged to treat, gets through their season or finishes their time with us. There are tears, laughter, high fives, and just pure joy when a goal is achieved. There is also sadness and disappointment when we fall short but we hold ourselves up with hope… that there will always be another season.

For our kids, we hope that there will be one more new treatment or break through, and until that point we just keep doing our best.

Who are you rooting for this season?