Providing safe, high quality care should be a focus for all faculty and staff. This week, Dr. Gabbe provides his thoughts on how we can all play a role and lays out a challenge for faculty and staff.
Hi! I spent some time last week with President Gee visiting several areas around the Medical Center. We visited with the Radiology staff, watched an electrophysiology procedure in the Ross, talked with staff on the adolescent unit in OSU Harding and looked in on a robotic surgery taking place. We both learned a lot and I want to thank all of you who took time to talk to us and share your ideas, your concerns and your vision. While each of the areas we visited was different, they all had at least one thing in common: they were all committed to providing the highest quality care and service to our patients.
Providing this quality care is incredibly important. It is the foundation of what we do. It’s the combination of service, clinical expertise and safety that define personalized quality care at OSU Medical Center. All of us have a different impact on improving the quality of care our patients receive and keeping our patients safe.
One way to drive improvements in quality and safety is to share our performance data – both internally with each other and externally with our customers.
You can access many types of data – including the 31-day re-admission rate to the hospital, our average length of stay, core measures and patient satisfaction – just by going to OneSource. And, you don’t even need to login. All the information you need is on the left-side under Quick Access. I encourage all of you to check out this dashboard if you haven't done it already, and see how you are performing as a service, a department, a division, a patient care unit or a signature program.
You can also check out the "Sharing Our Data" link on the Medical Center’s external Web site it provides information to our customers to help them make informed healthcare decisions and feel confident in their decision to seek care with us.
Whether you work directly with patients or provide support to those who do, whether you work with our students or in a research lab or anywhere in between, it is important that you understand our commitment to quality and the ways we measure and share our data.
I challenge you this week to look for one way that you can improve the safety or quality of the customer experience here at the Medical Center. It may be picking up that piece of trash in the hallway, reminding a colleague to wash his or her hands before entering a patient’s room, stopping to help a visitor find their way or pitching in to help a colleague who is busy and rushed. Whatever it is, it will make a difference. Remember, when we use the power of one – one person, one small thing – at a time, we can make a difference.
Speaking of the Power of One, 2 Ones together is 11. Eleven is the number of players on a football team, and on Saturday our 11 will beat the heck out of the other 11 from Michigan.
Have a great week and GO BUCKS!