Strategic plan sets our three-year road map

March 8, 2016
Strategic plan sets our three-year road map
Click these stories
Celebrating
Black
History
Month
Botsford
Commons team members
honor heritage, traditions
p. 2
Farmington
Hills wows
during
survey
Their exit
conference only lasted 26
minutes
p. 3
All in the
family
Working
with a family
member has
definite advantages
p. 4
Spotlight
on Michael
Smith
“Because
of my sight
limitation,
people had no clue what
I was going to do or what
I was capable of, and to
some extent, neither did I.”
I
n January and February, Beaumont Health CEO John Fox visited all eight hospitals
to share our organization’s three-year strategic plan in meetings with physician
and hospital leaders.
The plan outlines our strategies for addressing changes in the health care
environment – such as the aging population, high-deductible health plans, rising
consumerism and new models of care. It was developed with input from executive
leaders across Beaumont Health at strategic planning sessions held last year; was
reviewed and discussed by the Strategic Planning Committee of our board; and then
endorsed by the Beaumont Health board.
p. 5
“The world of health care continues to change rapidly,” said John. “This plan is our
road map for success as we move from a reimbursement system that rewards us
for caring for a high volume of patients to one that rewards us for high-quality and
efficiency, an extraordinary patient experience and affordable cost.”
Beaumont Health’s strategic plan has eight areas of focus called “imperatives” –
each with defined objectives, actions and teams of leaders responsible for driving
See, Strategic plan, continued on p. 2
2
Botsford Commons celebrates Black History Month with food, fun
The team at Botsford Commons pulled
out all the stops celebrating Black History
Month.
Staff participated in a soul food potluck,
dressed in cultural attire and learned
about African-American inventors who
brought us the traffic light, dust pan, hair
brush and more.
Strategic plan
Continued from front page
implementation plans. Five of the
imperatives are “foundational”meaning they are “must haves” for
health care organizations. These
include:
•Clinical Alignment – working
with our physicians around the
delivery of low cost, high quality
clinical care and industry-leading
efficiency.
•Patient and Family Centered Care
– engaging patient and families
in a care partnership model
demonstrating transparency,
collaboration and a culture of trust.
“This means doing things with
patients, not to them or for them,”
said John.
•Quality, Safety, Service and
Finance – achieving industryleading performance in patient
safety, quality, outcomes, patient
experience and finance. “We need
to learn from each other in quality,
safety and service so all boats
will rise across our organization,”
explained John.
•Learning Organization – creating
a culture where acquiring and
sharing knowledge is fundamental
and ongoing.
•Employer of Choice – being
recognized as the employer of
choice in Southeast Michigan
and beyond. “Not only do we
have to get compensation and
benefits right, we need to build an
environment of empowerment,
trust, diversity and inclusion,” said
John.
Three other imperatives are
“transformational,” meaning they
are “game-changers” that will help
differentiate Beaumont Health from
competitors:
•Beaumont Network – offering
a broader, better coordinated
network of care with our doctors
that is focused on quality and
value.
•Consumer Brand – developing
a consumer brand position that
differentiates us in the market –
supported by the values that we
live every day.
•Innovative Programs – being
recognized regionally and
nationally for leadership in
providing distinctive clinical
programs and services.
Beaumont Health team members
will learn more about our strategic
plan through a series of Blend
articles featuring interviews with the
executive champions of each strategy
starting this week.
“We’ll be tracking our progress
through a balanced scorecard with
metrics for each area of focus,” said
John. “We’ll be sharing the scorecard
with our board, our leaders and also
posting it on our intranet so that
all team members can see how are
doing.”
3
Beaumont, Farmington Hills shines in successful accreditation survey
C
ongratulations to the
physicians, employees and
volunteers at Beaumont
Hospital, Farmington Hills for
successfully concluding their five-day
accreditation survey by the Healthcare
Facilities Accreditation
Program. In
conjunction with
Beaumont Health’s
accreditation team
led by Gayla Weaver,
system director of
Accreditation and
Regulatory Survey
Preparedness, the
Farmington Hills team
achieved excellent
results.
“This is an exceptional facility,
and you should be proud of the
work you do,” the lead surveyor
said. “Most exit conferences don’t
take just 26 minutes. Good work.
Congratulations!”
achieved. You were well prepared and
it paid off.”
Connie O’Malley, incoming Beaumont,
Farmington Hills president, also
congratulated the team and thanked
the surveyors for their
input. “This process is
about helping us provide
the very best patient
care. We will be seeing
survey teams often as
we work toward Joint
Commission accreditation
in the next three years.
We must continue to
hardwire the practices we
learned to maintain the
standards demonstrated
this week for future
accreditation efforts.”
“This is the seventh time I’ve
been part of this survey,and this
is the very best survey results
we’ve achieved. You were well
prepared and it paid off.”
The staff handled the
multiple requests with
ease and reduced
the number of noncompliant issues from
40 in the survey three
years ago to 20 for the week. Also,
many issues were fixed before the
surveyors completed their visit.
First-hand experience of great
patient care
HFAP surveyors were first introduced
to patient care at Farmington Hills
when the nurse surveyor became ill
and visited the Urgent Care Center as
a patient the day before the survey
began. She recovered and joined the
team on day two of the survey. While
acknowledging that, “Getting medical
treatment isn’t traditionally part of
my inspection,” she said, “You are
providing outstanding patient care
here at Beaumont, Farmington Hills. I
can attest to that personally from the
care I received here at the beginning
of my stay.”
Comments from the other surveyors
were equally complimentary:
–Paul LaCasse, D.O., MPH
The facilities surveyor concurred,
saying, “As I leave town after a survey,
I ask myself two questions. One,
would I want to send my family to his
hospital? I can definitely say, ‘yes.’
And two, would I want to work with
these people? Again, my answer is
‘definitely yes.’ You have a great team.
Thank you, it was a pleasure.”
Kudos from leadership
“I’m pleased to say we were
recognized for our hard work and
congratulated for the wonderful
care we are providing at Beaumont,
Farmington Hills,” said Paul LaCasse,
D.O., MPH, who now serves as
Beaumont Health’s executive vice
president, Post-Acute Care Division
and Diversified Business Operations
after many years as Farmington Hills’
CEO. “This is the seventh time I’ve
been part of this survey, and this is
the very best survey results we’ve
Maureen D’Agostino,
vice president, System
Performance Excellence,
commented, “Given
the multiple changes in processes
– including going live on Epic in the
inpatient and physician practices
just a few months ago – the whole
Farmington Hills team did an amazing
job. My thanks to all for achieving
these outstanding results, and my
special thanks go to the accreditation
team and Gayla Weaver, who has
been instrumental in getting the
organization survey-ready.”
Next up: Royal Oak
Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak is the
next site to be surveyed this year.
Surveyors from the Joint Commission
are expected to arrive for a five-day
unannounced survey before May.
Stay survey-ready every day: visit the
Accreditation page on the Beaumont
Health intranet for tools and
information.
4
It's all in the family for some team members at Beaumont Health
To many, leaving for work may be a much-needed break
from the demands of family life, but for Beaumont Health
employees, Nick Sally, Tyrone Sally, Jill Skurnowicz and
Julie Higgins, working at Beaumont Health has actually
brought them closer to their loved ones.
Tyrone Sally, a nurse in the Emergency Center at
Beaumont Hospital, Troy, recently started working with his
son, Nick Sally, a technical aide.
Tyrone, who has been at the Troy hospital for more than
16 years, put in a good word for Nick. “He was trying to
figure out what he wanted to do in college, and working
odd jobs. So, I suggested ‘Why don’t you come work at
Beaumont where they’ll appreciate hard work and treat
you professionally,’” said Tyrone.
After nine months, both father and son say they have
found many benefits in working together in the EC. “I
don’t see any negatives with working with my father. He
keys me into terminology, because I’m entry level. He’s
the best to go to for advice and guidance,” said Nick.
The father and son try to work the same shifts so they can
carpool, and if the work flow allows it, they’ll even take
lunch together. “We’ve always been close. But now we
spend more time together. It lets him see a side of me he’s
never seen before, and now he realizes why dad comes
home tired sometimes,” said Tyrone.
For CRNAs Julie Higgins and Jill Skurnowicz, being
sisters and employees in Surgery at Beaumont Hospital,
Farmington Hills isn’t the biggest bond they share – they
are identical twins. Jill graduated from nursing school
before her sister and encouraged Julie to follow in her
footsteps. After both became CRNAs, the sisters split their
time between positions in Hawaii and Farmington Hills.
However, according to Julie, “Beaumont was always our
home base.”
After Julie got married, the sisters decided to settle down
and take permanent positions at Beaumont, Farmington
Hills. Jill started at Beaumont first, and according to both
Jill and Julie, there was a lot of confusion in the surgery
department when the other twin was hired.
“One negative is that we’re identical. Jill was working in
Farmington Hills before me, and then I showed up and
people kept on calling me by her name. I would talk to
surgeons in the OR and tell them I had never met them
before, and they would say that they had worked with me
for years. I would have to show them my badge for them
to believe me. They were dumbfounded,” said Julie.
To solve the problem, they began wearing different
colored surgery caps, Jill blue and Julie pink.
Other than the occasional case of mistaken identity, both
sisters adore working with each other. “It’s absolutely
fabulous. I work with my best friend … and it provides great
continuity of care to the patients and doctors, because we
are so alike, we do things the same way,” said Jill.
The twins enjoy working together and they believe they
are better at what they do because they work together.
“We bounce ideas off each other and we force each other
to be better. We are very competitive and we have a fun
competition doing our best and pushing each other,” said
Julie.
Jill left her full time position in August 2014 to become
a doctor of naturopathic medicine, but still works
contingent at Farmington Hills. “She doesn’t work as
often now. We are just as close, but I do miss her every
day. It’s different when she’s not here,” said Julie
After completing her studies, Jill hopes to return and join
Beaumont’s Integrative Medicine Program. “I can’t wait to
come back to Beaumont Health. I want to help grow the
program, and I want to have my best friend by my side
while I’m doing it,” said Jill.
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5
W
hen Michael Smith joined the Beaumont
Health team more than 31 years ago, he
set out to prove himself. His drive didn’t
stem from the normal jitters that come
with starting a new job. He had a greater mission: to
show sighted people that a blind man has the ability
and will to succeed. “Because of my sight limitation,
people had no clue what I was going to do or what
I was capable of, and to some extent, neither did I,”
Michael said.
After losing his job assembling transmissions, he
worked with a counselor who suggested going to an
agency that assists people with disabilities. “I didn’t
want to go because I thought New Horizons was for
more severely impaired people than just being blind,
but he told me I was going. So I went,” said Michael.
At New Horizons, he and a counselor put together his
resume and sent it out to prospective employers. “Nobody called us back. Nobody was interested,” he said. But a few
months later, he got a call from the New Horizons counselor. “She told me Beaumont was looking to hire minorities. I
told her I knew nothing about health care, but she told me to go anyway,” he said. “The people at Beaumont liked me.
The man conducting the interview asked me, ‘Can you do it?’ I said ‘Yes,’ and they gave me a medical book and told me
to go sell,” said Michael.
Preparing for his new job took a lot of time and effort. “I had to get phone numbers and books read to me on cassette by
sighted volunteers. I came the next day prepared with the tape and called these people and tried to sell. It was a lot of
extra work for me but I had to do it. It takes work for a blind person to show sighted people we can do it,” he said.
Today, he is an information clerk for Material Handling at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak. When materials need to be
transported in the hospital, team members contact Michael to coordinate. He is a master information collector, and
fields requests using software called Jobs Access with Speech, and a special system he created that collects and stores
contact information on a spreadsheet. The JAWS software reads what is displayed on the computer screen allowing him
to navigate. “Now with computers, there’s no reason a blind person can’t have a job,” Michael said.
He spent the first 21 years of his life with visual impariments, and in 1972 he lost his sight. “I used to be able to read a
newspaper. I used to be able to read a book. I used to be able to see people, colors and TV. Those things are gone now,
but I thank God for the memory of them. People ask if I wonder what somebody looks like, and I say to them it is not
important how someone looks, it is what comes from the heart of that individual that matters the most,” Michael said.
Michael is an avid oldies music fan. He hosts an online radio show and has spun some tunes at Beaumont for special
events. He also loves to write and has written extensively about his service dogs.
EDITORIAL TEAM
Lynn Anderson, Julie Antioch, Rebecca Calappi, Beth Montalvo, Scott Roush, Philip Sherman and Scott Spielman
Photographers
Elizabeth DeBeliso, Mark Nuytten and Tony Simler
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