Thou Shalt Not!

One of the biggest challenges in providing the highest level of service in healthcare is to undo the years of phrases and vocabulary that is so common and so destructive. We've all heard the following:

"She's not my patient"
"That's not my job"
"The other shift didn't do it"
"There's no supplies"
"There's no time"
"I'm in a hurry"
Etc.

When we started our transformation, we started here ... with vocabulary. We introduced Communication Guidelines in the form of "THOU SHALT NOT SAY ..." All of the staff could relate to saying or hearing each one of the 10 phrases at some point. Like with all our training, we made it fun/funny as we introduced the new requirement.

Then ... we laid down the law. We stated that saying any one of those prohibited words/phrases would be cause for termination. We were serious. We don't want to lose any of you. Etc.

When we termed a CNA for saying "She's not my patient," the entire facility found out about it and realized we were, in deed, serious about the experience our patients/customers receive. After the employee was termed, behaviour changed ... big time. There was a noticeable difference in the verbal communication with people in the facility ... more polite. More aware.

Everyone's been told not to say those things before. But, it is the full committment of the leadership of the facility (meaning willing to lose people) that is required to see the change take effect.

Guardian Angels

The Guardian Angel program is a great way to accomplish several objectives at the same time:
* Provide an additional "friend" or contact for the patient
* Get to know the patients better
* Proactively solicit feedback daily from all patients
* Communicate with patients' family weekly
* Check room for safety

Each department head is assigned as the "guardian angel" for a few rooms. Each day the GA is to visit the residents and patients in each of those rooms with the primary goal to build a good relationship. Get to know the patients, family members, etc. While there, the GA should be checking the room for safety and inquiring about customer service issues.

One great bonus for having this in place is during survey time. When the department of health asks you to arrange for a meeting with the patients of your choice, your guardian angels will be able to provide a broader perspective and deeper knowledge of the best candidates for that meeting due to the daily contacts.

A photo of each guardian angel is placed in the corresponding resident room with a brief description of the duties of the guardian angel (check out example above).

Secret Service

One of the biggest complaints in hospitals and nursing homes is how long it takes to get the help you need. A fanatical commitment to world class service is the right way to solve this symptom. AND, there's a way to cut call light/wait time in half while improving morale between direct-care staff -- join the secret service!

Picture it ... you're a patient recovering from surgery. You are experiencing severe pain. You push your call light for the nurse. 3 minutes later, a nurse's aide walks in and asks what you need. She tells you that she'll go get the nurse for you. Unfortunately for the nurse aide and for you, the nurse is in her secret hiding spot in the facility where she can actually get some of her documentation done. The aide looks up and down the hall. No nurse. She goes to the med cart. No nurse. How is the aide feeling toward the nurse? More importantly, how are you feeling about the aide, the nurse, and the whole facility?

The best solution I've found to that (and hundreds of other) scenarios is a pretty simple technology that the secret service uses to protect the president. And ... of course, we have a lot of fun telling the hospitals, doctors, and prospective residents that "if it's good enough for the president of the United States, it's good enough for our residents."



Imagine having each of your nurses and aides with the secret service ear piece in one ear while they work. Then, that scenario above plays out like this ... you ask for pain meds. The aide immediately presses her microphone button under her scrubs and says, "Roxanne, Mr. Jones needs a pain pill." (Everyone hears that in their ear) Roxanne -- in her secret hiding place -- responds on her undercover mic, "Tell him I'll be right there."

Math
Let's do the math together to drive the point home:

Let's take a 99-bed facility with 90 residents (high acuity). The day shift has the following in nursing: 5 licensed nurses, 10 nurse aides, 1 RNA. How many times during her shift does the nurse or CNA look for someone for assistance (ie, help with transfers, pain pills, showering, ADLs, wound care, room change, etc., etc., etc.)? Let's say 20 times. On average, how much time does it take to find the person you're looking for? Sometimes 20 seconds. Sometimes 10 minutes. Let's say 5 minutes. Now let's do the math ...

- 16 staff in nursing x 20 searches for help x 5 minutes per search = 1,600 minutes/60 minutes = 27 hours.
LET THAT SINK IN! On one shift alone, your nursing staff is spending a collective 27 hours "looking for someone to help." It's insane! That equals:
- 54 hours/day (treating the next two shifts like one day shift due to fewer staff)
- 68 days/month
- 818 days/year

If you really want to pull your hair out, calculate the wage cost of that "looking for someone to help." When I show this to Directors of Nursing, they have heart attacks. If your nursing staff/DNS is pushing back at all to the idea, do that math with them and you'll see a change of heart. Just think of how much more care can be delivered if you had 54 hours/day more of nursing time available?!

The radios & headsets we use have benefited us in several ways ...
- improved communication between nursing staff
- more efficient use of our time
- created buzz in the patient & labor market
- eliminated the hated/annoying overhead paging

Externally ... this has been HUGE for us in our community for marketing. The DC planners, doctors, vendors, etc. are thrilled that a SNF is so progressive/pro-active to this very common problem in healthcare. If you preach/market customer service as your distinguishing characteristic and are able to back it up with the secret service ear piece action ... buzz, buzz, buzz.

Post a comment/question or email me to find out more details about this solution. I have no vested interest in any technology solution provider by the way. I just can't imagine delivering healthcare any other way anymore.

"Buy A Bus"

In October of 2004, we acquired a facility in Orange County, CA called Palm Terrace. It was there that the idea of "becoming the Ritz Carlton of skilled nursing facilities" first struck us ...



A couple weeks before we took over the facility, the Dept. of Health called us in to their office to talk. It was there that we first realized what type of facility we were getting ... a train wreck. DHS informed us that PT was their worst facility in the county in terms of complaints and surveys (annual inspections). When I asked them why they thought it struggled so much for so long, their response surprised us ... "It's because you're in south orange county where the cost of living is too high for a lot of nursing home employees to live there ... so, you have to take what you can get." When I asked what they recommended, they said "buy a bus and bus them in from Santa Ana and Anaheim." After years of "dealing" with that facility, DHS saw buying a bus as the most feasible option! What immediately followed, ALMOST made me take up their advice ...

A few weeks after we took over, DHS showed up for our annual survey. And, in keeping with tradition, we failed it. Fines, penalties, and denial of payment for new admissions ... not to mention the stress in preparing for a re-survey. You gotta love it! By the start of the second quarter, we were in the hole and tired. Looking back, that thrashing was really necessary to "prepare the soil." Because of that experience, we were desperate not to repeat the same failure year after year and we started looking for what would address these pains we were feeling:

- Survey/Department of Health
- New Management
- Growing Census
- Feeling "Stuck" (internally & externally)
- What makes our building different from our competition?
- Recruiting
- Staffing
- Morale
- Financial Stress
- Survival Mode
- Customer Complaints

I think most SNFs experience these to one degree or another. We just happened to feel them all intensely at the same time :)

We identified something that would, theoretically, address all of those pains -- and we found it at a training offered by the Ritz Carlton hotels. I attended their training that summer of 2005 in Los Angeles and was blown away. The initial skepticism ("We don't look or smell like a Ritz") and ("Their customers actually chose to be their customers -- unlike our patients/residents") started to melt away as the day went on. My "yeah but" turned into "I wonder if" to "why not?" In addition to the Ritz, we studied Disney and the Four Seasons ...

We knew that radical change/commitment would be needed in order to become the ritz carlton of SNFs. But, frankly, we couldn't see any other way out. We developed our own framework -- including our Mission, Employee Promise, Motto, Customer Communication Guidelines, Service Definition, Guardian Angel Program, and Standards. We also developed training modules for each of these which included a test at the end of the training that every employee/and new hire had/has to pass in order to continue employment.

I'll go into more detail later about the model ... but, the results have been awesome as we've seen major improvements in the following:

- Staffing/Recruiting
- Reduced Complaints
- Improved Surveys
- Reduced Turnover
- Stronger Reputation & Census
- Provided hard, written standards to hold staff accountable and promote excellence
- Improved communication flow through Q Shift stand-ups
- Improved Financial Performance



What sounded good/right on paper turns out to be good/right in practice in this case. No remodel, re-landscaping, re-naming, re-anything could have the powerful impact on an organization that a fanatical commitment to world-class customer service standards can and does.

I hope this blog will serve both you and me to discover proven strategies and principles to bust out of the mediocrity in healthcare and achieve world class results.