Guest Contributor

My colleague Bart S at our sister hospital writes a periodic newsletter.  I liked the points he made in his most recent newsletter, so I'm reproducing it here, slightly edited, with his permission:

SIGNS OF THE TIMES
08/31/2011

Well, I’m excited about the future of rehab at Three Rivers Community Hospital. I met with Lisa and Angela in our VP’s office listening to him report on his trip through Washington and Oregon to check out medical office buildings that included rehab facilities.  (TRCH is about to build a new facility that will include outpatient therapies.)  I know we will all continue to have a great place to work. Not to mention great people to work with.

I was also reminded that we need to prepare ourselves for an environment of change at every turn. In fact I can’t see much about our department that will not change: if we are not flexible we will fracture. Some changes will occur very soon and others we need to prepare for. Our techs will soon have weekends off as we add Angie and Michelle as weekend techs. This will make the weekly tech schedule much more consistent and better for all of us. We also will soon be rotating inpatient and outpatient techs which will also be a positive change. We will not be borrowing techs from transport as much and that will make scheduling and continuity HUGELY better.

Lisa and I are working on some plans to minimize the mid week off days for our PT staff as well. We have discussed the need for more consistent hours bearing in mind we may have more ortho patients very soon. The LSVT referrals are increasingly causing us a very “BIG” scheduling problem. It is a good problem to have but still changes will need to be made to accommodate them. We will have Kim, our new inpatient  PT, beginning next week.

You all know about “EPIC” and how that will change things and the uncomfortable chaotic ramp-up period getting us up to speed. Charting on laptops and/or iPads on new forms with drop down boxes and check boxes will make us more efficient but will be a challenge to be sure.

Our new budget has not yet been approved and there will be cuts to be made. So here is where the “Signs of the Times” title to this letter came from. While I am very confident about the future of rehab,  and of our job security, I am aware we are living in the worst economic environment in my lifetime. Unlike the federal government we cannot raise our debt ceiling, print more money or buy up our own debt. We will be asked to do more in less time in less space with less staff and less reimbursement. We will need to be more efficient to continue to exist. Working in a routine “comfort zone” will be history and accommodating ever changing challenges will be the norm.

Here is why I said I was excited and confident. We have good leaders at Asante who are taking the necessary steps to be prepared. We have good therapists who have shown they can handle changes. In other words we have the right people on the bus. RVMC and TRCH have corrected very difficult financial problems before. Employees who were not producing were given good severance packages and moved out of our system. New managers were given new challenges and we became a better place to work. We have a new focus on outpatient services. We will be held accountable for our productivity but we will be supported as well. The move to the hospital campus will make us much more efficient and more of a team. Physical Therapists are in demand. I am one or two steps from retirement age and still getting job offers with sign-on bonuses. We chose a good career for bad economic times. The next few years will be a challenge but exciting as well.

Thank you all for your good patient care. Asante’s success from now on will be largely based on patient satisfaction. We need to continue discharging happy patients that tell their Doctors how well they were treated.

I will be on vacation soon. I hope to check out a rehab center that uses EPIC  on my way home. I understand that that center is very happy with no more faxes, no more waiting for authorizations and instant information availability.

I hope you all have a good Labor Day weekend.

Thanks again for all you do.

Bart