Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downer's Grove, Ill., can be characterized as an organization that is constantly improving. Each year it works to make its already high patient and physician satisfaction ratings even higher. In the summer of 2004, the hospital had an outpatient satisfaction rating at the 7th percentile, but by early fall 2006, that rating had increased to the 99th percentile. Today the hospital's outpatient department continues to maintain similarly high patient satisfaction ratings as well as high physician satisfaction ratings. Along with these successes came growth in patient volume, and the hospital now plans to open an additional OR later this year to help meet the demand.
David Fox, CEO of the hospital, shares five strategies the hospital and its leadership team used to improve the department so dramatically in just over two years.
1. Include outpatient improvement as key part of organizational strategy. Mr. Fox says a key reason Good Samaritan was so successful in its efforts to improve patient experience in its outpatient department was because the hospital began to think of it as an "organizational imperative." Leadership determined this would be a key organizational goal and then worked with department managers to create cascading, objective, measurable and weighted goals related to improving outpatient satisfaction, says Mr. Fox. Progress toward these goals was then used to assess employee and organizational performance. Making outpatient improvements part of the organization's overall goals helped to align all employees toward this goal and made them accountable for reaching the goals.
2. Develop a service-oriented workforce. Good Samaritan's leaders determined that a critical way to improve patient satisfaction was to develop a culture of service, supported by training employees in customer service skills and establishing standards of behavior. All existing employees received this training, and 27 "Standards of Behavior" were adopted. One example of these standards is a requirement that all patients needing directions will be walked to their destination.
Employees, during their performance reviews, were then evaluated as high, medium or low performers on overall job requirements, including their customer service skills and standards of behavior, and low performers were given the opportunity to improve or leave the organization, says Mr. Fox. Employees continue to be evaluated on these behaviors even today to ensure the hospital sustains this culture of service. Eventually, many of the employees who were inhibiting a strong culture of service left the organization, including several managers of key outpatient departments.
New managers were brought in to lead these departments, and the hiring of new employees was revamped to better ensure the hospital was bringing in only the best, most service-oriented candidates.
"We have improved the hiring process by implementing a national best practice called peer interviewing," says Mr. Fox. "We trained our best employees on how to do behavioral interviewing, and they get to decide if the person being evaluated is a good fit in behavior and attitudes for their unit."
As a result of these changes, the hospital has reduced its new employee turnover by 50 percent since fully implementing the program in 2005.
3. Updgrade software to improve scheduling, registration and communication. Another component of Good Samaritan's outpatient department in need of improvement was its technology. The hospital upgraded its scheduling and registration software to make the process easier on patients as well as physicians offices.
This upgraded software now helps to keep patients, their families and their surgeons informed. "Family members used to wonder about the status of their loved one. Families would see their loved on go into the surgical facility and then be waiting for extended periods of time before any news about the patient was available," says Mr. Fox.
In order to do a better job of keeping family members informed, an electronic tracking board was installed in the surgery waiting room that provides coded (to protect the patient's privacy) information on whether the patient is in the pre-surgical holding area, operating room or recovery room.
4. Implement block scheduling. Advocate Good Samaritan also implemented block scheduling, and today more than 60 percent of its cases are scheduled this way. Block scheduling improves both the efficiency and satisfaction of surgeons, which may improve a patient's experience as a result. Additionally, making physicians more satisfied with the surgery department improves the likelihood they will bring more cases to the hospital, which improves Good Samaritan's bottom line.
"We are always trying to improve time between cases for surgeons. Physicians only get paid for what they do and not for waiting around for an OR to open," says Mr. Fox. "Under certain circumstances, we even allow surgeons to schedule 'flip' rooms — doing one case in OR A, then OR B, then back to A. It's a less efficient way for the hospital to run an operating suite, but it can be much more efficient for the surgeons."
5. Track progress toward goals regularly and make results transparent. In addition to implementing numerous tactics to improve outpatient satisfaction, the hospital also began to track its progress toward achieving its patient satisfaction goals. Every Tuesday, patient satisfaction results are distributed to all leaders within the hospital. Additionally, patient satisfaction results are posted publicly each month on the department's communication board, which is located in public areas for all to see, says Mr. Fox.
Mr. Fox also shares all results with the hospital board and physician leadership each month as part of his "leadership report card." Doing so has made even the CEO accountable for improving outpatient satisfaction, thus making this goal a top priority for the organization and helped it from getting lost as other organizational needs arose.
Mr. Fox has served as CEO of Advocate Good Samaritan since 2003. He earned a graduate degree from the University of Chicago in healthcare management and previously served as president of Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Ill.
David Fox, CEO of the hospital, shares five strategies the hospital and its leadership team used to improve the department so dramatically in just over two years.
1. Include outpatient improvement as key part of organizational strategy. Mr. Fox says a key reason Good Samaritan was so successful in its efforts to improve patient experience in its outpatient department was because the hospital began to think of it as an "organizational imperative." Leadership determined this would be a key organizational goal and then worked with department managers to create cascading, objective, measurable and weighted goals related to improving outpatient satisfaction, says Mr. Fox. Progress toward these goals was then used to assess employee and organizational performance. Making outpatient improvements part of the organization's overall goals helped to align all employees toward this goal and made them accountable for reaching the goals.
2. Develop a service-oriented workforce. Good Samaritan's leaders determined that a critical way to improve patient satisfaction was to develop a culture of service, supported by training employees in customer service skills and establishing standards of behavior. All existing employees received this training, and 27 "Standards of Behavior" were adopted. One example of these standards is a requirement that all patients needing directions will be walked to their destination.
Employees, during their performance reviews, were then evaluated as high, medium or low performers on overall job requirements, including their customer service skills and standards of behavior, and low performers were given the opportunity to improve or leave the organization, says Mr. Fox. Employees continue to be evaluated on these behaviors even today to ensure the hospital sustains this culture of service. Eventually, many of the employees who were inhibiting a strong culture of service left the organization, including several managers of key outpatient departments.
New managers were brought in to lead these departments, and the hiring of new employees was revamped to better ensure the hospital was bringing in only the best, most service-oriented candidates.
"We have improved the hiring process by implementing a national best practice called peer interviewing," says Mr. Fox. "We trained our best employees on how to do behavioral interviewing, and they get to decide if the person being evaluated is a good fit in behavior and attitudes for their unit."
As a result of these changes, the hospital has reduced its new employee turnover by 50 percent since fully implementing the program in 2005.
3. Updgrade software to improve scheduling, registration and communication. Another component of Good Samaritan's outpatient department in need of improvement was its technology. The hospital upgraded its scheduling and registration software to make the process easier on patients as well as physicians offices.
This upgraded software now helps to keep patients, their families and their surgeons informed. "Family members used to wonder about the status of their loved one. Families would see their loved on go into the surgical facility and then be waiting for extended periods of time before any news about the patient was available," says Mr. Fox.
In order to do a better job of keeping family members informed, an electronic tracking board was installed in the surgery waiting room that provides coded (to protect the patient's privacy) information on whether the patient is in the pre-surgical holding area, operating room or recovery room.
4. Implement block scheduling. Advocate Good Samaritan also implemented block scheduling, and today more than 60 percent of its cases are scheduled this way. Block scheduling improves both the efficiency and satisfaction of surgeons, which may improve a patient's experience as a result. Additionally, making physicians more satisfied with the surgery department improves the likelihood they will bring more cases to the hospital, which improves Good Samaritan's bottom line.
"We are always trying to improve time between cases for surgeons. Physicians only get paid for what they do and not for waiting around for an OR to open," says Mr. Fox. "Under certain circumstances, we even allow surgeons to schedule 'flip' rooms — doing one case in OR A, then OR B, then back to A. It's a less efficient way for the hospital to run an operating suite, but it can be much more efficient for the surgeons."
5. Track progress toward goals regularly and make results transparent. In addition to implementing numerous tactics to improve outpatient satisfaction, the hospital also began to track its progress toward achieving its patient satisfaction goals. Every Tuesday, patient satisfaction results are distributed to all leaders within the hospital. Additionally, patient satisfaction results are posted publicly each month on the department's communication board, which is located in public areas for all to see, says Mr. Fox.
Mr. Fox also shares all results with the hospital board and physician leadership each month as part of his "leadership report card." Doing so has made even the CEO accountable for improving outpatient satisfaction, thus making this goal a top priority for the organization and helped it from getting lost as other organizational needs arose.
Mr. Fox has served as CEO of Advocate Good Samaritan since 2003. He earned a graduate degree from the University of Chicago in healthcare management and previously served as president of Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Ill.