171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
800-424-MUSC
|
 |
March 2007
Update From Our Administrator
 |
J. Philip Saul, MD
Medical Director
Director, Pediatric Cardiology |
Last week our medical staff leaders spent the day at the North Charleston Convention Center learning about the role out of a new program called "MUSC Excellence", using a system developed by Quint Studer of the Studer Group. Contrary to what the name first implies, the program is not focused on state-of-the-art medical care, but is directed at systematizing the way physicians interact with patients, staff and each other. Many of the recommendations are common sense - always introduce yourself and your team, give patients and families your card, tell them your role, communicate what they can expect to happen and how long it will take, and when leaving make sure you have thanked them for using us and dealt with all their concerns. The system focuses on key words at key times and uses the abbreviation AIDET as a tool for patient interactions: Acknowledge, Introduce, Duration, Explanation, Thank you. Although many physicians already do these things, not all do, and those that do are not always complete and consistent.
The system also addresses employee satisfaction by focusing us on how we deal with our staff from the standpoints of communication, respect and feedback. Perhaps the most important aspect of the program is that it uses various patient and employee satisfaction tools as outcome measures to assess the effect of the operationalized behaviors. Our leaders will be evaluated using 360 degree methodologies so that we are aware of how we impact patients, families, employees and upper management. Periodic evaluations will provide an opportunity to measure our improvement.
Introducing MUSC Excellence to our medical staff brings us in line with hospital employees who have already been practicing AIDET and other strategies for the last year. It was incredibly encouraging to see that most of our leaders were excited by the presentations and enthusiastic to bring these techniques back to their faculty for implementation. We hope that everyone will see a difference as we bring our class room efforts into practice over the next few months.
|
|
Print Version