Below are the December Medical Staff Updates. As a reminder, all providers must complete the attestation at the bottom of this page by December 31.
December naturally provides an opportunity for reflection. At Kaleida Health, as we look back over the past year, we are especially proud of the contributions the medical staff, in partnership with nursing and the entire Kaleida Health family, has made to improving quality, the commitment to the patient experience and the continual dedication to lead with CARE.
Last year, we set very aggressive quality goals for 2015 and are pleased to report there has been significant progress on all of these priorities:
While each of these achievements can be heralded on its own, collectively they show a team that is dedicated to leading with CARE and focused on every patient and their family. They are indicative of ownership in the process and commitment to reaching the goals.
It is also a reflection of Kaleida Health’s employee and medical staff engagement. This year, 52 percent of invited physicians and 57 percent of employees participated in the Press Ganey Survey. Up from last year by 18 percent and 6 percent respectively, an engaged team signifies a greater sense of pride by everyone across the institution.
So it is with genuine gratitude that we thank you for your hard work and dedication over the past year. We have come a long way, yet there is still more work to be done. As we gather input from the clinical teams and identify our 2016 goals, we hope you will join us in continuing the success.
David Hughes, MD, MPH
Chief Medical Officer
Kaleida Health
Kenneth Snyder, MD, PhD
Vice President, Physician Quality
Kaleida Health
Colin McMahon, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Buffalo General Medical Center
David Pierce, MD, FACEP
Chief Medical Officer
Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital and DeGraff Memorial Hospital
Stephen Turkovich, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo
Kamil Alpsan, MD
Site Medical Director
DeGraff Memorial Hospital
Thank you for Amplifying Your Voice in the 2015 Physician Engagement Survey. The 52 percent participation rate represented a significant increase over previous years.
By the end of February, Press Ganey will complete the site and service line reports.
In March, Press Ganey will share the results with the management team. Employees' and physicians' feedback will then be put into action as part of Kaleida Health's 2016 strategic plan and followed-up in action plans based on the opportunities for improvement identified.
Stay tuned for more information.
Effective Tuesday, December 8, there will be two consent folders in Forms on Demand within Forms Central – one for procedural/surgical consents and another for all other consents (such as consents for genetic testing, autopsy, and immunization). The purpose of this initiative is to make it easier and more efficient for nursing staff/unit secretaries to quickly locate the correct consent form as the process of printing and obtaining consents should be a shared process with collaboration amongst providers, nurses and administrative support.
For organizational purposes, the folder for procedural consents will be divided into subfolders for each specialty. For example, a consent for an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) will be in the gastroenterology subfolder and the consent for a cholycystectomy will be in the general surgery subfolder.
Consents may be located, if applicable, in more than one subfolder. For example, a colonoscopy consent will be in the gastroenterology subfolder and also the colorectal surgery subfolder.
In addition, Kaleida Health 's Procedural Consents Committee will be reaching out to Kaleida Health's Chiefs of Service and medical directors to review the specialty folder content. All users can also email Sandy Levy at slevy@kaleidahealth.org with suggestions for placing consents in an additional or separate folders.
The committee will continue to explore additional consent management options in order to achieve the long-term goal of optimal consent management including form content, as well as the non-technical language for each consent.
Starting January 1, 2016, discharge or death summaries for all inpatient and observation patients, regardless of the length of stay will be on AMOK (All Medical Records Overdue at Kaleida Health), the electronic application that tracks the current status of medical provider documentation completion.
Any provider who is designated as the discharging physician must complete the discharge or death summary within 24 hours of the patient's discharge.
To ensure the discharge summary is assigned to the correct provider, the attending physician field is now mandatory in the "Discharge Patient" order and requires the name of the attending on the day of discharge be completed.
Progressive discipline will apply to the attending of record for incomplete discharge or death summaries and posted on AMOK.
Please contact Vickie Trautman, director of health information, at vtrautman@kaleidahealth.org with any questions.
Kaleida Health, in partnership with UB|MD Primary Care, implemented a resident retention program in order to retain the best and brightest well-trained primary care physicians. The program is designed to support high-quality residents through their residency and encourage them to remain in primary care in our community. Key components of the program are a monthly stipend through the final months of residency training and a signing bonus upon execution of contracts, in return for a minimum two-year commitment to work in primary care at UB|MD and Kaleida Health.
David Hughes, MD, MPH, chief medical officer, noted, "With the changing healthcare environment, our primary care providers are becoming increasingly more important in the delivery and coordination of health care to our patients and community." Anne B. Curtis, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and president and CEO of UB|MD Internal Medicine, added, "We appreciate the support of Kaleida Health for this new program. It sends a powerful message that Kaleida Health and UB|MD strongly support our primary care physicians."
The inaugural program participants, Denise Dennis-Coke, MD, and Kenyani (Kiki) Davis, MD, both of whom have strong primary care skills, will be most welcome additions to our community upon graduation from residency training next summer.
Below is a new policy that affects providers at Kaleida Health. Please take a moment to review this month's updates. The policy link below is accessible from a Kaleida Health computer only. For additional assistance, please contact Amy Palombo at apalombo@kaleidahealth.org or 716-859-8447.
New Policy:
ED.1103 – Triaging Pregnant Patients in WCHOB ED
Is there something you would like featured in an upcoming issue of Medical Staff Updates?
Contact Patty Vorpahl, vice president of Physician Services and Medical Staff Office, at pvorpahl@kaleidahealth.org.
By submitting this attestation, I confirm that as a member of the medical staff I have read and understand the information included in this email from Kaleida Health in accordance with Kaleida Health policy MED.41 as approved by the Medical Executive Committee.
Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required. |
|