Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Improving The Utilization Of Lunch Breaks For Nursing Staff, Norma Dawson, Kelsey Robinson, Bridget Miller, Deborah Monck, Beth Kessler

Operations Transformation

The Med-Surg Unit at LincolnHealth has a high number of nursing staff missing lunch breaks, despite encouragement and existing efforts to promote taking breaks. In addition, there are many instances where staff are not accounting for the breaks they have taken on their time sheets.

Mainehealth Cancer Care Network Ticket Intake Process, Lauren Couture, Brett Cropp, Gavin Carr, Ashok Kunche, Heather Boulier, Evelyn Taylor

Operations Transformation

The MaineHealth Cancer Care Network informatics team is manually submitting most reporting tickets for oncology customers. The current intake ticket process includes various communication channels to the business intelligence developers [BID] when a reporting need is identified resulting in workflow deficiencies and redundancies. As of FY23, MaineHealth has moved to a new ticket reporting system called ServiceHub which includes new customer self-service tools that have not yet been utilized.

Creating Capacity To Accommodate Additional Cardiac Catheterization Procedures, Kristin Anthony

Operations Transformation

Patient access to diagnostic outpatient (OP) cardiac catheterization is limited by a perceived lack of capacity. Outpatient cardiac cath pts flow through the ACU for pre/post procedure care. Current schedule limits pts that may be scheduled through the ACU to two OP procedures/day. Cardiologists request the ability to schedule beyond the two procedures/day allowed. Significant variation in pre/postoperative care orders exist amongst cardiologists resulting in variability in length of stay. Cardiac procedures are booked either as 60/90/120 minutes – Epic case averaging technology is not active in the cath lab. As a result, the case minutes in the cath lab …

Key Performance Indicator (Kpi) Development Pathway, Christopher Lloyd, Amy Giles, David Spaulding, Sarah Rines

Operations Transformation

In Q1 FY24 as more team members started to take Operational Excellence classes and subsequently become more engaged in quality improvement it was observed there was much enthusiasm but also some gaps in the understanding of available tools, resources, data collection strategies, and what elevates something to a KPI, etc. There is a need to create a guide that supported gaps, streamlined tracking process, and aligned teams in this new approach.

Approach To Pivie In Pediatrics: Standardization For Early Detection, Jamie Green, Jill Gregory, Elizabeth Murphy, Jessica Miller, Nicole Manchester, Frank Harris, Meaghan Wildes, Cecilia Inman, Jenn Paradis, Faye Weir

Operations Transformation

PIVIE (Peripheral Intravenous Infiltration & Extravasation) can have devastating effects, especially in the pediatric population. The condition may disrupt vasculature severe enough for permanent skin and tissue loss that can lead to impaired limb function due to severe scarring. Problem: No standardized process existed either to prevent or review these events at Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center prior to the study. PIVIEs were measured through the event reporting platform and only severe PIVIEs were being documented in this report. All infiltrations (1-4 on the infiltration scale) should be measured for accurate benchmarking. Occurrences in the electronic medical …

Transition To Adult Care For Bleeding Disorders: Building A Multidisciplinary Tool, Leslie Larson, Ekaterina Funk, Dana Grass, Felicia Munster, Eric Larsen, Louise Baca, Glen Roy, Sara Artinyan

Operations Transformation

Youth with chronic illnesses often have poorer health outcomes after transitioning to adult care. Maine Health Bleeding Disorders is a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant funded Hemophilia Treatment Center (HTC) that serves patients with congenital bleeding disorders. We provide multidisciplinary specialty care throughout the lifespan which includes pediatric and adult hematologists, family nurse practitioners, nurses, physical therapists, social worker, dietitian, genetic counselor, and research coordinator. In 2022, HRSA mandated all federally funded HTCs increase by 25 percent from baseline the number of individuals ages 12 to 26 years seen in a comprehensive clinic that have a health care …

Sustaining Care Team Engagement Using A Hierarchy Of Needs Framework, Katherine Skroski, Sam Canonico, Hailey Frager, Mary Beeaker, Natalia Johnson, Rebecca A. Brookes

Operations Transformation

Cardiology Intensive Care & Cardiovascular Interventional (CICU & R9 West) teams provide superb care to critically ill cardiac patients at Maine Medical Center. Covid Pandemic revealed the importance of physical and mental health wellbeing, as well as care team engagement in order to continue to provide outstanding care to patients. CICU/R9 West Leadership looked for ways to improve team engagement and ensure that care team members’ needs are met and sustained.

Leveraging Vascular Access Team To Increase Safety And Access To Care, Deb Linscott, Cecilia Inman, Mandy Rodney, Vascular Access Team

Operations Transformation

Using a pager platform to receive vascular access consults related to peripheral intravenous catheter (PIV)/central line care and maintenance needs has resulted in significant time and delays in treatment lost by bedside nursing and vascular access staff. The goal of this project is to develop a nursing consult order set to replace the paging process to improve transparency and communication among team members, reduce delays in IV therapy administration, and improve efficiency.

Measuring Monetary And Non-Monetary Roi At Mmc Opex, Suneela Nayak, Natalia Johnson, Rebecca A. Brookes, Jill Shiroki

Operations Transformation

Operational Excellence (OpEx) is a data driven approach to department based continuous improvement, minimizing costs, increasing efficiencies, engaging staff in a shared quality agenda and assuming a proactive approach to maintaining facilities. The OpEx platform assists in strengthening efficiency and patient safety at Maine Medical Center (MMC) by demonstrating alignment of goals across the entire organization. A recent publication by BMC Health services “… found that the ROI concept in healthcare QI aligned with the concepts of value and benefit, both monetary and non-monetary.”2. Currently, OpEx does not have a system in place to track these values. We are looking …

Improving Employee Engagement Scores With Strategically Focused Improvement Coaching, Suneela Nayak, Natalia Johnson, Rebecca Brookes, Jessica Ladd, Meghan Flaherty, Mark Parker

Operations Transformation

Every three years, Maine Medical Center releases a Strategic Plan outlining high level priorities. This guides decision making, resource allocation and invited a call to action for engaged participation from providers and staff. Operational Excellence at MMC is leveraging a stable Daily Management System to strengthen strategy deployment by coaching teams and leaders to link local improvement initiatives with high level strategic priorities.

Leveraging The Operational Excellence Platform For Improvement: Strengthening Culture Of Safety, Rebecca Brookes, Suneela Nayak, Natalia Johnson, Risk And Patient Safety

Operations Transformation

Senior leaders drive the culture change by demonstrating their own commitment to safety and providing the resources to achieve results. Their consistent and sustained messages about safety help advance a culture of safety ¹. Even with many efforts to improve patient safety, harm events continue to occur, challenging us to innovate additional ways to safeguard patients in our care. The Operational Excellence (OpEx) platform for improvement at Maine Medical Center (MMC) is well positioned to strengthen the Culture of Safety at Maine Medical Center (MMC) by leveraging the mechanism of established Daily Gemba Walks. During each Gemba Walk, leaders …

Team Engagement & Obstetrics Transformation Committee, Colette Dumais, Faye Weir, Lynn Willey, Kristen Heanssler, Brittany Babb, Suneela Nayak, Natalia Johnson, Rebecca Brookes, Obstetrics Transformation Committee,Maine Medical Center

Operations Transformation

Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace. Employee engagement helps to measure and manage employees' perspectives on the crucial elements of workplace culture. Based on over 50 years of employee engagement research, engagement employees produce better outcomes (better patient care) than other employees. Based on the unit survey, team members, with the support of local leaders, formed the Transformation Committee. This Committee was developed as a shared governance, team led model to address process improvement needs and create a culture of active engagement in problem solving.

Leveraging Improvement Capacity For Organization Strategy Deployment, Suneela Nayak, Natalia Johnson, Rebecca A. Brookes, Andrew Levine

Operations Transformation

Every three years, Maine Health releases a Strategic Plan that outlines the organization’s strategic priorities and guides decision making and resource allocation through promoting our mission, vision, and values. Operational Excellence at Maine Medical Center aims to create a culture of continuous improvement that promotes quality and value in our healthcare system in alignment with our strategic priorities. Through our improvement efforts within the hospital, we want to ensure we are disseminating and promoting the goals set forth by the Strategic Plan in our daily management system.

Pandemic Pearl: Innovations In Virtual Improvement Coaching, Suneela Nayak, Natalia Johnson, Rebecca Brookes, Andrew Levine

Operations Transformation

The success of local performance improvement efforts depends on the engagement of clinical care teams in a culture of continuous improvement. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many teams at Maine Medical Center (and across the globe), transitioned to remote work to stop the spread of the virus. While some are returning to office, a significant amount of work is still being done remotely. For continued success, we need to understand how we can best coach clinical care teams in a hybrid or remote environment.

Facilitating Earlier Discharges To Decrease Avoidable Patient Days And Improve Flow For An Acute And Intermediate Care Unit, Natasha Bartlett

Operations Transformation

No abstract provided.

Strategies To Improve Timeliness For Cleaning Inpatient Rooms Following Patient Discharge, Lora Dixon, Mark Parker, Ruth Hanselman, Suneela Nayak, Amy Sparks

Operations Transformation

STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE TIME FRAME FOR CLEANING INPATIENT ROOMS BY ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES

In an inpatient rehab hospital, it was noted that Environmental Services (EVS) was delayed in cleaning rooms between patient discharges and admissions. This resulted in the frequent use of a “stat clean” order that allows only 50% of the normal cleaning time , forcing patients to wait and impacting patient flow.

A root cause analysis demonstrated lack of communication between the rehab hospital and the contracted cleaning services. A number of counter measures were initiated with the goal that cleaning would be started within 20 minutes of …