A culture of safety? Your thoughts please!

I have written about our efforts around improving patient safety a number of times in the past (here and here as examples) and will continue to do so in future posts. However, from time-to-time it is also important to stop and ask, how safe are we we and are our efforts making a positive difference in the care we provide to our patients?

As leaders, we need to listen (as well as direct) and this is one of those times. A couple of weeks ago we launched a survey for our team members to tell us how they feel about our culture and just how safe of an environment we have created. It's actually something we do every other year to gauge our progress and identify opportunities of where we can continue to improve.

Our last survey in 2008 survey identified opportunities in the following areas:
- Hospital hand-offs and transitions
- Non-punitive response to error
- Teamwork across hospital units
- Staffing based on acuity

Since then we have made concerted efforts to improve upon these items as well as other safety initiatives that have surfaced. I look forward to seeing the results of this years survey and to see how far we have come along and what new areas we can work to improve upon.

If you are a JHSMH team member and haven't completed your survey, please do so by the end of the month so your voice can be heard! Details are on the intranet: under “Company News and Announcements” you will find “AHRQ Patient Safety Survey.” Click the link and tell us what you think! Thank you!

A culture of safety? Your thoughts please!

Celebrating our care givers...the true meaning of patient care

I was in a meting with the Dean of our Medical School yesterday and he noted that I must be really busy lately because I haven't added any new blog posts recently. Astute as always, he also has a way of helping me to reflect and refocus on our mission and why it is we are ultimately here.

With great timing, right after our meeting, I received this note from one of our managers and thought it was fitting to share as just one example of many that define and distinguish our care givers at Jewish Hospital. Granted, this is a little late for nurses day, but then again we don't have to wait for just one day a year to share and celebrate the caring and compassionate care givers we have exhibiting excellence in action. Please read the note below and if you see one of our care givers today, please tell them "Thank You" and encourage them for the outstanding jobs that they do each and every day!

"I wanted to share an example of why after three plus decades I am still a nurse and still in management. Yesterday we lost a patient. Working in ICU this is not an uncommon event but this time it hurt more than it normally does. I was so proud of our team of nurses, nursing assistants, unit secretaries, respiratory therapists, chaplains, social workers and physicians; everyone treated her with love and respect. Her mother hugged me yesterday prior to her death, and asked me if I knew what a great team that we had, and I told her "absolutely". Our patient died surrounded by the love of her family but also surrounded by the compassion and love of the ICU Tower's team, the RT's and everyone else mentioned. It was a true interdisciplinary effort. During this last hospitalization she received manicures, shampoos, her legs were shaved and of course lots of friendship. In the scheme of things this may not seem important but these were tasks that normalized a far from normal existence while in a hospital. These were tasks done by a team that is used to a high tech environment but who knew these tasks perhaps made this high tech environment more "normal" and truthfully it made "us" feel helpful in a situation where we felt helpless. At the management meetings we are always asked what "wins" we have had. Although it was not a win as such for the team since we lost our patient and this has been a horribly sad event, I am immensely proud of our team. They were high tech when they needed to be, they were humanistic when they needed to be. They just were everything they should have been and I am proud."

--From a Jewish Hospital Nurse Manager (edited to protect the identity of our patient)

Celebrating our care givers...the true meaning of patient care

The Flexner Report Centennial Symposium

Tomorrow we are hosting a lecture in honor on the 100th Anniversary of the Flexner Report. For those of you who didn't know the significance behind our address, I thought I would share this summary and information with you as we celebrate the man behind this "game changing" report and his impact on medical education as we know it today.

One hundred years ago, Louisville educator Abraham Flexner revolutionized the medical profession with his exhaustive report entitled “Medical Education in the United States and Canada.” The report, published in 1910, served as a catalyst for the standardization of medical education around North America. To celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Flexner Report, the University of Louisville School of Medicine and Jewish Hospital will be jointly sponsoring a national event to be held on May 4 at the hospital’s Rudd Heart and Lung Conference Center and at the Old Louisville Medical School. The T. Cook Smith Lecture of the Innominate Society for Medical History and Banquet will be held the same evening.

Flexner’s research, originally commissioned by Henry Pritchett, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, included information gathered from his survey of the 155 medical schools then in existence in the United States and Canada. In matter-of-fact language, Flexner castigated the appalling state of medical education in America, named the names of schools with astounding low standards, and suggested drastic steps to improve the sad state of affairs.

Flexner, then secretary of the Rockefeller Foundation, became the major mover and shaker to ensure that medical education would never be the same. He was instrumental in providing funds to many designated medical schools and ushered in the aptly-named Flexnerian revolution in medical education. The Flexner Report catapulted Flexner, who was not a physician, to celebrity status in the education field where his opinion was sought on various educational matters – particularly on medical education.

“It is our pleasure to be co-hosting this event honoring Abraham Flexner,” says Jewish Hospital CEO Marty Bonick. “Medical schools throughout the United States are far stronger – even now – due to his extraordinary efforts. We appreciate our close association with the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine, and share their excitement in paying tribute to Flexner’s work in a substantive way.”

“Flexner was born in Louisville and lived here until he was 39 years of age,” said Dr. Edward Halperin, dean of the UofL School of Medicine. “Louisville is a fitting location to celebrate the centennial of the Report.”

Transition Director of the Jewish Community of Louisville, Ronald Greenberg, is aware of the Flexner family’s role in the Jewish community. Abraham Flexner’s brother, Jacob, and his nephews, Morris and Samuel, were all physicians associated with the old Jewish Hospital. After the Flexner report’s findings became known, all of the city’s “private medical colleges” closed; only the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine survived. Jewish Hospital memorialized Flexner’s contributions to medical education by naming the street in front of the hospital Abraham Flexner Way.

Drs. Morris Weiss, Adewale Troutman, Gordon Tobin, Charles Smith and E. Ray Knight have agreed to serve on different panels and on the Abstract Review Committee.

[by Phyllis Shaikun]

The Flexner Report Centennial Symposium