“Acknowledgement and celebration are essential to fueling passion, making people feel valid and valuable, and giving the team a real sense of progress that makes it all worthwhile.” ~ Dwight Frindt

May 20, 2011

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Information Sharing To Keep Us All ‘In The Loop’ …

I want to say thank you to all of you that came out last Friday for the State of the Medical College Presentation. We had a full house on campus and live streaming for those who were off-campus. For those of you who were unable to attend, you can tune in to http://www.georgiahealth.edu/medicine/ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIxqhWSJ73k for the overview that will bring you to up-to-speed on our present activities, and share with you the goals of the future. Thank you for your input and leadership.

Celebrations ….

The activities of the President’s Inauguration week continue today with the Investiture Service at 2 pm at Paine College’s Gilbert Lambuth Memorial Chapel. Following the Investiture Service will be a reception at Twin Gables at 4 pm. As your schedule permits please join us today in this momentous celebration.

The festivities will continue tomorrow with the GHSU Day of Service. Many have signed up to volunteer at one of the non-profit partners for our Day of Service. Thank you for your volunteerism. Tomorrow evening at 6 pm begins the Family Celebration at the GreenJackets stadium, in recognition of all your hard work and leadership. Lots of activities for the kids and adults with the last event of the evening being a fireworks display. We recognize the multiple (indeed often conflicting) commitments on your time and so we appreciate all your efforts and involvement.

Leadership …

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Loretta Davis on being named as Chief of the Section of Dermatology. Dr. Davis has been a faculty member in the Department of Medicine since 1992 and has served as Interim Chief for the past year. Dr. Davis is an outstanding clinician-educator. Please wish her the very best in her new position when you see her next. We are excited to have Dr. Davis at the helm of the Section of Dermatology.

Site Visits Never Stop …

We want to also congratulate Dr. Jim Rawson, Chair, Department of Radiology, Dr. Walt Moore, and the entire faculty, residents, and staff of Radiology on a very good preliminary outcome of their ACGME site visit. The Radiology Residency program and the Neuroradiology Fellowship program were both evaluated. The site visitor was impressed with the educational program-mentoring, institutional support, and the number of faculty recruited over a short period of time. While this is encouraging, obviously we will need to await the results of the final report which should be completed later in the year. This is a departmental wide effort and everyone should be commended for a job well done.

Residents’ Retreat …

Dr. Walt Moore held the annual Residents’ Retreat last Friday which had over 70 attendees. There was a chief resident panel that discussed the handoff process for medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and psychiatry. The result of the panel is an intern/resident education program being developed to teach how a handoff should be done. This is a major undertaking – it is gratifying and important that this year’s retreat paid particular focus to the residents’ leadership in quality and safety improvements. We want to thank all of you that participated in and made this retreat a success once again.

Patriot’s Flag …

We hope that you were able to attend the Patriot Flag event last Sunday. This was a very moving event. Not only did we recognize the loss of dear lives, but we were able to show our thanks to all those – especially our local soldiers and first responders – that secure our freedom and values every day. The Patriot Flag will fly in all 50 states within the year before it flies over New York City, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

EHR Update … Synchronicity …

The Synchronicity project is well under way. Not only will this help us to provide better health care but will also improve efficiency and will enhance the privacy of patients’ medical records. Ambulatory training began this week. All medical staff needs to be registered before the pilot go-live and the big bang go-lives. Please visit the following link to view the training calendar and register for classes: http://hi.georgiahealth.edu/trainMe/Default.asp?pickDate=5/1/2011. Already, the sign-up for training has been brisk. We appreciate your support. We are committed to providing you weekly updates as the countdown approaches. An FAQ site related to Synchronicity is currently available here http://ehr.georgiahealth.edu/archives/64.

Techies …. Not Trekkies …

The 9th annual GHSU Tech Fair will be held on May 26th in the Greenblatt Library. There will be four tracks of presentations to include Clinical Technology, General Technology. Research Technology, and Teaching with Technology. All faculty, staff, students, and residents are encouraged to attend. Please register by following this link http://cmetracker.net/MCG/doPostCatalog.

GHSU-UGA Medical Partnership …

We are delighted that our students in Athens are reaching out to the Athens community. Students in the GHSU-UGA Medical Partnership recently formed teams to work on real problems facing Athens-area health agencies, including the Athens Community Council on Aging. The students have customized a computer database that will keep trace of the medicines each Council on Aging client is taking. One team worked with the Athens Nurses’ Clinic to help indigent patients stop smoking. Another team assisted parents and teachers in the Athens’ Head Start and Early Head programs in learning how children can avoid asthma. This is important community work. We admire these students for their ‘partnership’ with the Athens community.

Improvement in the Patient Hospital Experience …

There is a lot of interest in improving the patient hospital experience and we would like to share with you 5 Ways to Energize Your Patient Experience Strategy which was highlighted recently in Health Leaders Media. First and foremost, it is emphasized that we should all be clear on what we are doing and why. That means that everyone from the ‘mailroom to the boardroom’ needs to understand that patient perceptions are directly related to the quality and customer service we deliver. Second, we were reminded that the role of leadership is to establish vision and to provide support. Strong, visible support and leadership from the top down is critical to the success of improving the patient experience. Third, the report emphasized the importance of cultural alignment … oh, and by the way, in this kind of culture change we are all leaders … this is our responsibility to understand what a patient needs and values. Fourth, engaging everyone in the institution was stressed – as everyone is critical to the patient’s successful experience. Finally, the report reminds us that it takes relentless commitment and continuous action by everyone to achieve true excellence and to get to the point where improving the patient experience is not a goal, but the nature of the organization. This is our challenge … this is our opportunity.

Many thanks for all you do for MCG, GHSU and our community.