Happy New Year and welcome to 2024!
Fun fact: The name of the month of January is thought to come from the god Janus (Ianus), of ancient Roman religion and myth. Janus is described as a god of transitions, with functions pertaining to birth, journeys, shipping, and exchange. Also associated with beginnings and endings, time, passages, doorways, and duality, he is depicted as having two faces, one looking to the future and one to the past. As the god of passageways, he was thought to keep evil out of homes, buildings, schools, and courtyards ... wherever there was a doorway or gate.
Two important areas as we head into 2024:
- Quality is key: There are several ways we ensure we provide the highest quality of care to our patients. First and foremost are the years of education, training and knowledge that each of you bring to the table. In high risk, high stakes, rapidly changing fields such as healthcare, we also commit to a lifetime of learning and continuous process improvement. We strive for a just culture, where near misses and errors are reported. We are working through Medical Staff leadership to refine and strengthen our Peer Review and FPPE/OPPE processes. In future newsletters we will talk more about our Quadruple Aim Scorecard (see photo below; download a PDF of the scorecard HERE), which is how we measure ourselves across areas including patient experience, health outcomes, stewardship, and caregiver engagement. There are some areas that show favorable trends or are green, but multiple areas of red that we will continue to work on this year.
- Continued emphasis on Length of Stay (LOS): Thanks to your efforts, we made progress throughout 2023 to bring down both our LOS and our Geometric Mean Length of Stay Observed:Expected (GMLOS O:E) (see graphs below and download a PDF of them HERE). I hope we “feel” that as improved patient flow, in addition to the improvement we’ve seen in boarding hours in the Emergency Center. 2023 was the first year since 2019 where the ALOS has not increased year over year. We will continue the work we’ve started, diving more into how to prevent ancillary delays and building post-acute partnerships this year while strengthening our Multidisciplinary Progression to Discharge Rounds (MPDRs) at both ministries. We’ve already seen increased boarders and a bump in LOS for December, so I cannot stress enough that this work is ongoing; the only way to ensure sustained improvement is to hardwire and continue to refine our processes.
