Lakeside Health System: Crystal-Clear
Hospital Systems
Written by Amanda Gaines   
Thursday, 01 November 2007
Lakeside Health System: Crystal-Clear - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Kevin Nacy outlines how this acute care hospital unveiled the facts and improved its quality of care.
Transparency is the name of the game at New York-based Lakeside Health System. For the past two years, under the guidance of president and CEO Kevin Nacy, this general acute care organization has made significant strides in improving its CMS reporting process, how its staff approaches and interacts with patients, and the general look and feel of the facility. What it all comes down to, according to Nacy, is a desire to provide employees with information they understand rather than simply presenting the facts.

Lakeside Health System: Crystal-Clear - Health Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Kevin Nacy, CEO
“We’ve been working on transparency for the past two years,” said Nacy. “It’s not focused so much on reporting but dealing with issues, evolving away from reporting data and facts and toward a more participatory and educational process.”

First things first
When Nacy first arrived as interim CEO in 2005, the 181-bed healthcare system, which also includes a long-term nursing-care wing and short-term rehabilitation services, was not properly collecting the data pertinent to CMS quality measures. His first order of business was to sit with the nursing and medical staff to find out what was happening.

“We brought those groups together and showed them the data, which began discussions about making improvements,” said Nacy. “We talked to them to ensure we were performing those tasks with high quality and that the information would be easy to find.”

The nursing and medical staff worked together to develop new forms designs, which are now prominent in each patient’s medical record. When Nacy became permanent president and CEO in 2006, the hospital had seen improvements, but it was clear more could be done.

One of Lakeside Health System’s board members is lean certified and led the charge to educate many of the system’s management staff on lean processes. In addition, in partnership with Kodak, many of the staff managers benefited from lean and Six Sigma training. And while the need originated from streamlining the organization’s reporting processes, it certainly didn’t stop there.

After investing in a 32-slice CT scanner and a PACS to increase Lakeside’s competitive edge, Nacy and his team realized they needed to look beyond new equipment to increase efficiency. They did a value-stream map and involved the staff and doctors in reviewing every step in their radiology patient throughput and how fast reports were sent back to physicians. “Our report turnaround time is down from a little more then four days to a little under two,” he said. “It’s been a big satisfier for the medical staff.”

Whistle while you work
In addition to incorporating lean and Six Sigma methodologies to increase efficiencies and provide higher quality care, Lakeside Health System hired Press Ganey to do patient satisfaction surveys for both its inpatient and emergency departments. The organization also developed a Disney committee and has provided each staff member who wanted one a copy of Fred Lee’s If Disney Ran Your Hospital.

“We’re using the data from the Press Ganey surveys to target the Disney group to find out how we could make the patients’ experience here a little better,” Nacy said.

In addition to changing some of the elements of the physical facility, such as softening the look of the waiting rooms, exploring carpeting options, and evaluating signage, Lakeside’s Disney committee is looking at how employees greet patients, how patients are handled, and if patients receive the full Disney treatment when they walk through the hospital’s doors.

“Our initial Press Ganey data alerted us to the fact that patients felt we weren’t answering our call bells quick enough,” said Nacy. “After making staff aware of that impression, our scores immediately went up. We’re in our second month now, and we’ve already seen the scores improve simply because we’ve made the staff aware of the results and what they meant.”

The results are in
In July, Lakeside’s OB department received the national Premier Healthcare Award for Excellence in quality of care and operations. In addition, the hospital’s quality measures report card for the first quarter of 2007 showed significant improvement in many quality-measured areas. In the fourth quarter of 2006, its compliance ranking for heart attack care was at 73%. The 2007 results were at 100%.

Similarly, its heart failure care rates for the fourth quarter of 2006 were 80%, as were its results for pneumonia care. In the second quarter of 2007, heart failure care compliance was at 99%, and pneumonia was at 94%. The hospital also became an accredited stroke center in late September. The results, said Nacy, are from focusing on areas with the potential to make the biggest impact on the hospital: the ED, OB, and radiology departments.

“Those are relatively high volume areas for the institution,” he said. “We realized focusing on those areas first would make a more significant impact.”

Prepared to show the results of its hard work to the community, Lakeside hired its first marketing director to look at the organization’s marketing materials and develop the Lakeside brand. With the assistance of board members, community leaders, and staff, the hospital is well on its way to delivering the kind of care and quality results Nacy always believed were possible.

“It’s been a long process, but instituting these changes has made it possible for both the administration and the staff to see how they can improve the timing and quality of care provided to patients,” said Nacy. “Now we need to get the word out so our community chooses us as their healthcare provider.”
 
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