July 2009 Zero Hero Create a Safe Day. Every Day. Congratulations on Four Years of Rankings
A Nationwide Children s Employee Publication :: June 2009 >> Kim Walters Editor :: Doug Edwards Graphic Designer :: Brad Smith Photographer :: Dan Smith Photographer Canal Winchester Close To Home SM Nationwide Children s Close To Home SM network is expanding. The new Canal Winchester Close To Home SM center with urgent care, laboratory (ChildLab), and radiology will be in the Diley Ridge Medical Park, a project of Mount Carmel and the Fairfield Medical Center. It is slated to open spring 2010. Center I-270 SR-33 I-70 Pickerington ChildLab Canal Winchester Close To Home SM Center may s winner Volunteer of the Month Yuri Shats 200 hours of service june s winner >> For more information on our 2009 rankings, read the Special Edition StatChat on the Intranet or visit www.usnews.com/childrenshospitals. Volunteer of the Month Marilyn Donley 2,230 hours of service spot read *Read more about the above winners at NationwideChildrens.org/Spotlight. Circle of Friends Run Spend a Day on the Links Did you watch the New this year, nearly 500 troops raced in the Circle of Friends Run for the Rainbow overseas. Pictured below are those who volunteered. In honor of their support, we sent a banner signed by patients, family and staff. All proceeds from the run benefited pediatric cancer research at the hospital. Nationwide Children s Hospital invites you to join us Saturday, August 1 for the third round of the Nationwide Children s Hospital Invitational. Tee times begin at 8:30 a.m. at The Ohio State University Golf Club-Scarlet Course. To receive complimentary admission(s) and a food voucher, please RSVP online by July 25 at NationwideChildrens.org/NCHInvitational. Telethon? The Children s Miracle Network Telethon raised over $8.5 million! The event broadcast live on May 30 and May 31 on WBNS 10 TV and all of the proceeds benefit Nationwide Children s Hospital.
zero hero If you ve been to a Vision Forum recently, or you ve noticed some new buttons being sported by your colleagues, then you know something about Zero Hero. This is the name for the hospital s new Quality and Safety effort, which is being spearheaded by Chief Medical Officer Dr. Rich Brilli. Dr. Brilli is challenging Nationwide Children s to eliminate preventable harm by 2013. So what is preventable harm? Who s a Zero Hero? And why does every single employee at Nationwide Children s need to care about this? It will take all of us to get to zero. Q. Let s start with the basics, what is preventable harm? Preventable harm occurs when a series of preventable errors or mistakes reach a patient and have a negative impact on him or her. Examples include medication errors, falls and blood stream infections. The patient didn t come to the hospital to be treated for this, but they are now facing a new complication at best, and sadly in the most severe cases preventable harm can even result in death. Q. Why aspire to zero that seems almost impossible why not a 50 percent reduction? I can t justify aiming to reduce harm by only a percentage. How do we explain to our patient families that we strive to only reduce a portion of preventable harm incidents? Mothers and fathers don t care that we have 50 percent fewer cases of harm when their child is on the receiving end of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Aiming to be the best or have the lowest rate says that it is still acceptable to have some preventable harm. I reject that, we need to stop thinking about percentages and start thinking about number of actual patients harmed. When you look at it that way, one is too many. Our patients and families deserve a zero aspiration. Q. I am in a non-clinical department, how does this affect me? It affects you just as much as it affects the doctors and nurses seeing patients every day. Since the entire staff of Nationwide Children s is one team, we must all work together to achieve our goal. If you work in billing or with patient medical records, you have the ability to prevent medical record numbers being duplicated, which could cause harm at the bedside. If you work in the hospital and you walk past a spill and do nothing, you re enabling a preventable error that could hurt a patient or family member in a fall. Every single employee has a duty and a responsibility to create a safe day, every day by being a Zero Hero. Q. What will you do to help us reach zero? I have asked a team of consultants, HPI, to work with us to identify areas for improvement and put in place new systems to achieve zero preventable harm. These changes will include a set of individual behavioral expectations that will make safety a core value for each one of us. Our goal is to provide all the resources and necessities this hospital needs to reach zero. I don t expect you to do this on your own; we re already one of the best children s hospitals for safety, but we re not at zero yet. That s why these consultants will help us identify the missing pieces. For more questions and answers from Dr. Brilli, visit NationwideChildrens.org/Spotlight for the full article. July 2009 3.
weathering the storm Spotlight first ran a story on the 2009 financial plan in the February issue. Now that five more months have gone by, take a look at the charticle below to see just how our financial indicators and the economy s indicators have weathered this storm. Patient volumes - Actual patients vs. projections Medicaid Utilization - Costs for patients covered by Medicaid Payor Mix - Percent of Medicaid patients compared to commercial insurance and self-pay Expense Control - Costs associated with operating the hospital mock room makeover Thanks to the feedback from Nationwide Children's Hospital employees and the Family Advisory Council, members of the engineering staff were able to alter the mock rooms of the new main hospital and improve their effectiveness. The updated rooms opened in May and were redesigned to enhance patient care, efficiency and color. Here s what they changed :: Height of the welcome desk was lowered. :: The brightest shade of the designated floor color was added to the walls and ceiling of the station. :: Different shades of the designated floor color were used throughout the vicinity to differentiate between certain areas on the floor. Financial Performance Indicators Medicaid Utilization Payor Mix Hospital Patient Volumes We re fine Caution Serious Expense Control Early 08 Late 08 Qtr 1 09 Economy Unemployment Financial Markets :: The LED screen behind the bed can continuously change colors, stay on one desired color, or be turned off and is controlled by the patient. :: Each room has a flat screen TV/computer with Internet access and a keyboard that slides out from the eating table. :: Lockable closets were added which provide a place for patients and guests to store valuables or personal items. State Budget Early 08 Late 08 Qtr 1 09 4. July 2009
I feel like I contribute to our mission and I feel more connected to it. The people here are friendly - you can always get a smile. Jeanne Rocco, Senior Recruiter Nationwide Children's Employee Referral Program recently held an interviewing event that brought in 395 interviewees. they re back! A trend in hiring is becoming evident in the Human Resources department as former employees are coming back to the hospital in large numbers. In 2008, Nationwide Children s rehired 125 previous employees. This year to date, there have been 62 rehires. So what is it about Nationwide Children s that makes former employees return? This is a stable organization that s growing and offers opportunities for its employees. Julie Amling, Senior Business Processing Consultant if you ve got them, flaunt them Guaranteed to put a smile on your face, and a droop in your collar, the popular Service Star program will be getting a facelift. For the past nine years, employees and friends of Nationwide Children s Hospital have been catching people doing things right. This summer, the program will undergo a transition, placing emphasis on the values of the hospital, instead of the former customer service principles. The new criteria for a Service Star recipient will include going above and beyond one of the five values: - we do the right thing - we are one team - we promote health and well-being - we are agile and innovative - we get results All staff are encouraged to nominate a deserving recipient online by visiting the Nationwide Children s Intranet and clicking on the Service Star link under Employee Interests. Karen Fleshman has received 203 service stars since the program began. July 2009 5.
need a lift? Responding to a growing need and putting families first, Nationwide Children s Hospital has just installed a new changing table for special needs families in the restroom by Pastoral Care in the main lobby. The table is specially designed for older children or adults and provides a comfortable, safe and convenient changing area. Look for directional signage in the Main Lobby so you can help families who need it find this new family-centered innovation. nationwide children s hospital in the news A study, conducted by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children s Hospital and published in the online issue of Clinical Pediatrics, found that furniture tip-over-related injuries should be a concern to parents, especially those with children younger than 7 years of age. During the 18-year study period, nearly 15,000 kids were sent to emergency departments annually in the United States, and occurred as the result of televisions tipping over. More than one quarter of those injuries happened when children pulled over or climbed on the furniture. There was a more than 40 percent increase in the number of injuries during the study period, and the injury rate also significantly increased during these years, said study senior author Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, director of CIRP. This trend demonstrates the inadequacy of current prevention strategies and underscores the need for increased prevention efforts. This study received national and international media attention putting Nationwide Children s in the spotlight. The story aired on two national morning shows the TODAY Show and the CBS Early Show National Public Radio, reached nearly 16 million television viewers, posted on more than 250 web sites including Consumer Reports and created buzz among Twitter users. If you have a newsworthy story idea, contact Marketing and Public Relations at (614) 355-0495 and ask for a member of the media relations team. 6. July 2009
ear infection vaccine successfully delivered through the skin A newly-developed, pain-free vaccination strategy might help protect against the most common childhood disease worldwide, according to a new study*. Investigators in the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis at The Research Institute in collaboration with Dr. John Clements at Tulane University in New Orleans found that applying a vaccine candidate directly to the skin has the potential to effectively prevent ear infections. In the United States, ear infections are the number one reason for emergency room visits; an estimated 83 percent of all children will experience at least one ear infection before their third birthday. Ear infections are currently managed with antibiotics or surgery, said Laura A. Novotny, chief research associate in the Bakaletz Lab in the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms and the invasive nature of the surgical procedure raise the need to develop different ways to treat or, preferably, prevent this disease. Investigators in the Bakaletz Lab had previously designed several vaccine candidates that were shown to prevent experimental ear infections after immunization by injection. Yet the group still desired a less invasive delivery method. We wanted to expand our immunization strategy to transcutaneous immunization, applying a vaccine candidate directly to the skin, said Novotny. To test this direct-to-skin strategy, investigators placed a droplet of one of three vaccine candidates on the ear of an animal model and rubbed the droplet into the skin. This process was repeated once a week for three weeks. When the models were exposed to nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHI), one of the bacteria commonly responsible for ear infections, those that received the vaccines were able to very rapidly reduce, or completely eliminate NTHI from the nose and ears. The group that received the OMP P5-directed vaccine candidate completely eliminated NTHI from the nose within seven days; a group that received a combined OMP P5 and Type IV pilin-directed candidate eliminated NTHI from the ears within three days. Our data are the first to show that transcutaneous immunization is an effective way to prevent experimental ear infections, said Novotny. These studies lay the foundation for an effective, yet simple, inexpensive and potentially transformative way to deliver vaccines. In addition, this research could have important implications for the prevention of other diseases of the respiratory tract caused by NTHI. *Data were presented in May at the 109 th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. July 2009 7.
ONTHE SPOT Grover Manning II High Pressure Boiler Operator When: 3:47 a.m. Where: Central Energy Plant Charged with ensuring our three boilers are operating within limits, Grover performs regular checks during his shift by logging the readings and sampling the water. These boilers provide heat and steam where needed throughout the hospital. Marketing and Public Relations Department Non-profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 777 Columbus, Ohio 700 Children s Drive Columbus, Ohio 43205 www.nationwidechildrens.org 3208