By Dr. Jeremy Boal, President of Mount Sinai Downtown
I don’t have to tell you that working our way through the MSBI transformation is very complicated and dynamic. You are living it every day. We’ve learned that this much change, on top of an already demanding healthcare environment, requires a much more aggressive approach to identifying and solving the problems that get in the way of you and your colleagues doing your best work. In light of this, over the past year, we’ve taken a more proactive approach to solving problems that I want to tell you about.
Each morning at 9:00 am, my immediate team and I meet as a group to work on and solve current and ongoing issues that have been brought to our attention one way or another. We meet in the same room every day where we have a giant tracking board that we use to make sure that no issue, regardless of how big or how small, is ignored or forgotten. Here are some examples of things we’ve been working on recently…
- Transport team staffing enhancements
- Implementation of the hospital-wide security assessment recommendations
- Nor-Easter preparations
- A surgeon’s request for additional mid-level provider support in his practice
- A staff member report of broken equipment on a behavioral health unit
- Difficulty in obtaining Pyxis access for nurses floating to units
- Resident difficult in accessing an elevator during a rapid response event
- A request for a staff lounge for our CPEP unit
You get the idea. No issue is too small for us to take seriously. Everything that is reported to us matters. We keep a daily, weekly, and monthly grid of these topics – some things we can solve instantly and others are more complicated and take time to resolve. But we never give up.
Then, every day at 9:30 am, we join another 30 or so directors, managers, and department leads for our safety huddle. Our chief medical officer, Dr. Barbara Barnett, asks every hospital and ambulatory department to report on patient, staff, safety, and operational issues from the last 24 hours and for the next 24 hours. This meeting is all about connecting the right people and tackling daily challenges as quickly and collaboratively as possible. I’m often amazed at how rapidly our security, engineering, social work, environmental services, hospitalists, and so many other teams come to the rescue after this 9:30 am huddle. We truly have remarkable people taking care of us and our patients.
We want everyone in the organization to feel safe and comfortable bringing problems and ideas forward. In particular, we do not stand on ceremony with regard to traditional chains of command. We emphatically do not believe that rigid adherence to the traditional hierarchy (staff member to manager to director to vice president etc.) is healthy or required when things are as dynamic as they are here. The main thing is for you to feel comfortable bringing your problems and solutions to anyone you think will get the issue addressed. Many of our wonderful managers and supervisors can help you with your concerns. But, there is no wrong way to escalate any issue you are having. As we grow and change together, I hope you will reach out and let me know how we can help. You can e-mail me at any time. I would be so grateful to hear from you. Jeremy.Boal@mssm.edu.
