The Newsletter of Yale

THE
BULLETIN
May 22, 2014 • Volume 37 • No. 10
The Newsletter of Yale-New Haven Hospital
Pink is Valuable; YNHH takes securing patient valuables to the
next level
Keeping patient valuables safe has long been a challenge
at Yale-New Haven, so the hospital has come up with a
new policy and procedures to protect patient belongings.
Three simple clues will help employees remember those
procedures: “communication,” “pink” and “Epic.”
The new policy requires employees to identify patient
valuables when patients enter the hospital and give patients
options for securing their valuables. Effective June 16,
YNHH will offer bright-pink storage accessories, including
two different-sized bags, containers, denture cups, medication safety tape and bedside safes in all patient rooms.
Even more important than the highly visible accessories
is a new step in the process – paperless, mandatory documentation of all patient valuables in Epic. The current location of patients’ valuables – which are considered everything in their possession – will be updated in Epic, which
standardizes valuables lists and prompts staff to check
valuables every time the patient moves and at discharge.
Visit the ICD-10 intranet site
for FAQs, articles, helpful links
and more.
Go to the YNHHS intranet,
click “Projects,” and “ICD-10.”
“We have always encouraged patients to leave all personal valuables at home or to send them home with family
members,” said Nick Proto, director, Protective Services.
“But too often, patient valuables get lost or stolen in the
hospital because the process of identifying and securing
valuables at our front entrances isn’t working. As a result,
the hospital must reimburse patients for lost belongings.”
“Yale-New Haven spends $100,000 to $350,000 annually to compensate patients for lost or stolen valuables”
said Lynn Cermola, manager, Patient Relations and Guest
Nick Proto, Protective Services, and Lynn Cermola, Patient Relations
and Guest Services, show off some of the new Pink is Valuable bags and
containers staff will use to help keep patients’ valuables secure.
Services. “But cost is not the biggest issue – patients and
family members are rightfully upset when personal items
are lost while in our care. The emotional impact and patient
dissatisfaction are enormous.”
An interdisciplinary committee was formed to rewrite
and simplify the patient valuables policy and is meeting with patient service manager councils and leaders of
departments on both campuses to educate managers on the
new procedures. The committee also created a 24/7 hotline
(688-PINK) which will be available for 60 days after the
June 16 go-live to help employees navigate the process.
HealthStream training will familiarize all employees who
Continued on page 4
YNHH inducts fifth class of Heroes
The hospital welcomed 16 new members
of the fifth class of Yale-New Haven Heroes
April 28 as hospital leaders, family members
and colleagues gathered at a reception in
their honor.
Chosen from a pool of more than 280
nominations, the members of this year’s
class represent a wide variety of YNHH occupations and locations, and for the first time
included Saint Raphael Campus employees.
Each winner was nominated for the honor
by their peers and selected by the hospital’s
Heroes Nominating Committee, Human
Resources, the candidates’ managers and the
Senior Operations Group.
Large posters of the members of the new
class of heroes will be displayed throughout
the hospital in high-visibility areas for employees, visitors and patients.
The members of the fifth class of Yale-New
Haven Heroes are:
•A
nna Andreozzi, RN,
TakeHeart Cardiovascular Health Center
• Maria Batick, HVC Cardiac Intensive
Care Unit
• Michael Bennick, MD, medical director,
Patient Experience
• Kathleen Brady, RN, Labor and
Birth Unit
• Domenico Cifarelli, Patient Transport
• Mary Cleary, RN, Core Education
These three heroes, from left, Mary Cleary, RN, Kathleen Brady, RN, and
Anna Andreozzi, RN, share a bond that began in childhood. All attended St. Rita
School in Hamden, and all decided to become nurses. While they attended
different colleges, they are back together again at Yale-New Haven Hospital,
Cleary in Core Education, Brady in Labor and Birth and Andreozzi in the
TakeHeart center.
“You were chosen as heroes because you
put the I am Yale-New Haven pledge into
practice every day,” YNHH President Richard D’Aquila told honorees. “Your
posters will remind us that excellent service should always be our collective
goal and encourage us to think about how we can enhance the patient experience for each and every patient we serve.”
• Candace Davies, Respiratory Care
• Fernando Gonzalez,
Environmental Services
• Albert Hilger, Adult PACU
• Steyfanie Hudgens, Maternity Services
• Patricia Lequire, PFAS
• Griserl Nieves-Sterling, Smoking Cessation Program
• Kevin O’Brien, volunteer, Volunteer Services
• Maureen Raucci, RN, Medical Oncology
• Michelle Tate, Food and Nutrition Services
• Karen Zrenda, Family Resource Center, YNHCH
Great Catch winners help YNHH
become a high reliability organization
Newsbriefs
Congratulations to the March Great Catch winners, who used high reliability
organization safety behaviors to protect our patients.
Komen Connecticut Race for the Cure June 7
Saint Raphael Campus
Jaclyn Jermine, RN, MICU, demonstrated a
questioning attitude and used validate and verify.
Jermine noticed very subtle redness and swelling
on a patient’s arm and alerted the medical team.
The patient’s treatment plan was changed and the
symptoms resolved. Jermine’s great catch ensured
the patient received appropriate treatment.
Employees are invited to join or support Yale-New Haven Hospital’s team in the
annual Komen Connecticut Race for the Cure, Saturday, June 7, Bushnell Park in
Hartford. Registration begins at 7 am. The event includes a 5K race, Kids K and short
run and 2K and 4K walks. This year’s team captain for the Smilow Cancer Hospital
at Yale-New Haven Pacers is Carla Giles, ambulatory manager, Community Health.
YNHH is a longtime recipient of Komen grant funds and a corporate sponsor of the
race. To join the team or make a donation, visit komenct.org. For information on
YNHH’s team contact Giles, 688-7092, [email protected], or Patricia DeWitt,
[email protected].
Financial fair June 9 - 13
York Street Campus
Cathiria Solivan, patient care associate, Pediatric
Cardiology and Medicine, displayed a questioning
attitude while bathing an infant in her care. Solivan
thought the infant was breathing harder than usual
and summoned the nurse. Thanks to Solivan’s great
catch, and her willingness to speak up for safety, the
infant received the care needed, quickly.
YNHH will hold its annual financial fair June 9 - 13 in six locations. Employees can
learn more about financial programs the hospital offers from representatives from
Fidelity Investments, Healthcare Financial Federal Credit Union, Bank of America,
First Niagara Bank/H.O.M.E. program, Mercer Voluntary Benefits and the Employee
and Family Resources program. Benefits staff will also be available to answer questions about the annual cash account pension plan personal statement employees will
receive at home before the fair.
Fair dates and times are:
• Monday, June 9, 1 - 4 pm, North Haven facility, 6 Devine St.
• Tuesday, June 10, 10:30 am - noon, Medical Center South, and
1 - 4 pm, Shoreline Medical Center, conference room 1412
• Wednesday, June 11, 8:30 - 10:30 am, Hawley Lane office, Trumbull,
and 11:30 am - 4 pm, West Pavilion, second floor, York Street Campus
• Thursday, June 12, 7:30 am - 2 pm, West Pavilion, second floor,
York Street Campus
• Friday, June 13, 10 am - 4 pm, cafeteria, Saint Raphael Campus
Transforming Healthcare Grand Rounds June 10
Employees are invited to Transforming Healthcare Grand Rounds, 5 - 6:30 pm
Tuesday, June 10, Fitkin Auditorium. The speaker is Helen Bevan, PhD, chief of
Service Transformation, National Health Service Institute for Innovation and
Improvement, United Kingdom. The talk is part of a series designed to help
employees and physicians enhance their clinical leadership by learning from national
and international experts on improvement science. Registration is not required.
For information, contact Marcia Johnson, 688-8475, or [email protected].
Raffle and auction June 10
YNHH will hold a raffle and auction, 5:30 - 8:30 pm Tuesday, June 10, Anthony’s
Ocean View, New Haven, to benefit the hospital’s Musculoskeletal Center. Eight
Visa gift cards ranging in value from $1,000 to $25,000 will be raffled. Raffle tickets
are $125 each; no more than 1,500 tickets will be sold. The event also includes a
cocktail reception, silent auction and 50:50 raffle drawing. To order tickets,
call 688-9644 or visit ynhh.org/raffle.
Closer to Free/Cancer Survivors Day event June 11
Zebras and
peacocks and
cheetahs,
oh my!
With the help of Child
Life’s Arts for Healing
program, a Yale-New
Haven Children’s Hospital patient
has turned drawings of some of her favorite animals into cards now for
sale in the York Street and Saint Raphael Campus gift shops. With support
from the YNHH and Saint Raphael Campus auxiliaries and two businesses,
Lori’s Gifts and Goodcopy of New Haven, 100 percent of the proceeds from
card sales go to Arts for Healing. Young artist Bailassan Ghunime shows off
her creations with Janice Baker, Arts for Healing coordinator.
Cancer survivors and their families are invited to a Closer to Free/Cancer
Survivors Day event, 4:30 pm Wednesday, June 11, Yale University, West Campus.
Thomas Lynch, Jr., MD, physician-in-chief, Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New
Haven, and director of Yale Cancer Center, is moderator for the event, which will
include presentations on nutrition and lifestyle changes, along with a cooking
demonstration. The event is sponsored by Smilow Cancer Hospital, Yale Cancer
Center and City Seed. To register, visit ynhh.org/events or call (888) 700-6543.
YNHH honored for commuter transportation options
Best Workplaces for Commuters, a program designed to encourage sustainable
transportation innovation, named YNHH a Gold Medal winner, as one of the top 10
employer organizations taking exemplary steps to offer transportation options to
employees. The hospital’s traffic demand management program includes commuting
and parking alternatives like shuttle services, public transportation subsidies, carpooling support, vanpooling, alternative modes of transportation and telecommuting.
YNHH’s program helps address parking challenges; demonstrates environmental
excellence by reducing gasoline demand, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution;
and exhibits corporate citizenship.
YNHH, YNHHS teams honored at
safety/quality conference
Members of the Tele-Intensive Care service team honored at the conference included,
back row (l-r): Peter Marshall, MD, Respiratory Care; Tim Cooney and Steve Miklos,
Information Technology Services; Jonathan Siner, MD, Medical Intensive Care Unit; and
Evan Jackson and Ed Fisher, ITS; with Alan Kliger, MD, Quality Management. Front row
(l-r): Stanley Rosenbaum, MD, Anesthesiology; Jennifer Ghidini, APRN, Medical Critical
Care Services and Specialty Programs; Meredith Johnson, Project Management; Carla
Carusone, RN, Specialty Programs; and Lenore Reilly, RN, MICU, SRC. View YNHH
winning teams on the employee intranet.
Three teams from Yale-New Haven Hospital were among seven systemwide honored at the 13th annual Joseph A. Zaccagnino Patient Safety and
Clinical Quality Conference.
One team each from Yale New Haven Health System, Bridgeport and
Greenwich hospitals and Northeast Medical Group were also recognized
for their improvement projects at the May 15 event. The conference drew a
record 750 employees and medical staff members and 140 poster abstracts.
“How incredible it is to have this number of people focusing on what is
best for our patients,” Alan Kliger, MD, vice president and chief quality officer for YNHHS told the crowd.
Project ASSERT marks anniversary
In April, Project ASSERT celebrated 14 years of helping patients who are
struggling with alcohol and other substance abuse get the treatment they need.
Last year, health promotion advocates (HPAs) with the Emergency Departments
at both YNHH campuses screened 1,897 patients and directly referred 825
to specialized treatment centers. Follow up showed that 591 patients –
72 percent – had successfully enrolled in a treatment program. Celebrating at
Project ASSERT’s 14th anniversary gathering were (l-r): Ralph Soldano and
Damaris Navarro, HPAs; Alexei Nelayev, Project ASSERT coordinator, Yale
School of Medicine; Gail D’Onofrio, MD, chief of Emergency Medicine; and
Gregory Johnson and Vanessa Brown, HPAs.
Dr. Kliger presented data showing the system’s progress on key safety and
quality measures such as hand hygiene and serious safety events. He also
discussed the quality measures the federal government uses to determine
how much healthcare organizations are reimbursed for care, but encouraged
care providers to put those measures in the context of what patients want.
Keynote speaker Sarah Henrickson Parker, PhD, research scientist at the
National Center for Human Factors Engineering in Healthcare, discussed the
human factor in applying safety science in health care.
Following the keynote speech, representatives from the seven winning
teams presented their projects, including those from YNHH and YNHHS:
• A team from Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital dramatically reduced
healthcare-acquired bloodstream infections in Neonatal ICU patients
through best practices in hand hygiene and central line care, education
and data collection and monitoring.
• A YNHH team worked with members of the Greater New Haven Coalition for Safe Transitions and Readmission Reduction (CoSTARR) Program to enroll 4,500 high-risk patients in CoSTARR and lower 30-day
readmission rates.
•S
taff from various YNHH departments reduced by over half the number
of mislabeled laboratory specimens. Their efforts included a Final Check
Initiative that engages the patient in the identification process, requires
specimen labeling at the patient’s side and requires staff to say aloud the
last three digits of the patient’s medical record number.
• A YNHHS team implemented a pilot Tele-Intensive Care service at the
Saint Raphael Campus in which specialists remotely monitor patients.
During the pilot program, the service assisted more than 15 major interventions, nine which were life-saving.
In Memoriam
s
Robert Roberson, Environmental Services Technician
Robert Roberson, environmental services technician, YNHH Saint
Raphael Campus, died on March 30, at the age of 47. He joined the
staff of the Hospital of Saint Raphael on May 18, 1987.
Congratulations, Nightingales
Twenty YNHH nurses won Nightingale Awards for Excellence in Nursing this
year. Honored at a May 8 dinner hosted by the Visiting Nurse Association of South
Central Connecticut were, back row (l-r): Erica Bartol, RN, Stroke/Telemetry
Medicine; Susanne Halim, RN, Medicine (EP 10-7/8); Rick O’Connor, RN, Surgical
Intensive Care Unit (SP 7-1); Cheryl Levesque, RN, Smilow Cancer Hospital Care
Center, Guilford; Amanda Caswell, RN, Nursing Medical Critical Care; Krisztina
Nemeth, RN, Medical Oncology; Danielle Huseman, RN, Medicine (EP 10-7/8);
Martha Smith, RN, Emergency Department (SRC); Christine Jencik, RN, Surgical
Intensive Care Acute (Verdi 2 West); Michelle Miranda, RN, Surgical Step-down
(SLA 2); Andrea Murrell, RN, Transplantion Center Unit; and Jennifer Balzi, RN,
Neuroscience ICU. Seated, from left: Christine Moran, RN, Labor and Delivery
(YSC); Deborah Gallagher, RN, Pediatric Emergency Department; Stephanie
Hedberg, RN, Neuroscience/Epilepsy; Patricia M’Sadoques, RN, Surgical Intensive
Care Unit (SP 6-1); and Kristen Cocca, RN, Cardiology Lab (SRC). Missing from
photo: Leslie Alexander, RN, Pediatric OR; Kimbra Dombroski, RN, Pediatric Surgery Center; and Michelle Keithline, RN, ICU Resource Support Unit.
Valuables • Continued from page 1
May 22, 2014 • Volume 37 • No. 10
have patient contact with the new policy and procedures.
Editor: Nancy Martin
Next issues: June 12, June 26
“We expect our new Pink is Valuable system to greatly reduce the patient dissatisfaction and cost associated with lost items,” Proto said. “Kudos to the committee members, who have worked a long time to perfect the process. We are all
excited to finally see it through to fruition.”
Designer: Paola Goren
Copy deadlines: May 30, June 13
Contributors: Katie Murphy, Myra Stanley
Submit story ideas to Nancy Martin, 688-7015,
or to [email protected].
Photography: Kelly Jensen
The Bulletin is available at www.ynhh.org/bulletin.
Newsmakers
Leslie Hutchins, BSN, MBA, has been named
manager for Clinical Informatics. She began her nursing career at YNHH in 1984 working in Obstetrics. In 1990,
Hutchins became involved in the design and use of the first
YNHH electronic medical record (EMR) system. Over the
next 24 years she was involved in the design and implementation of three different EMRs. Hutchins has been instrumental in Epic planning, implementation and optimization, serving
in her role as coordinator, Clinical Informatics, since October
2011. She earned her BSN from the University of Rhode Island and an MBA in
management and organization from the University of New Haven.
Thrift shop seeks donations
The YNHH Auxiliary Thrift Shop at the corner of Orchard and Chapel streets at
the Saint Raphael Campus has a new name, but still offers a wide variety of items
for great prices. Donations of clean, ironed men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, on hangers if possible, are welcome, along with shoes, household goods and
other items. The shop particularly needs gently used men’s and women’s business
attire for people transitioning back into the work world. Donors are asked not to
leave items in bags outside the shop. Employees may drop off large donations at
Volunteer Services at the SRC, Main Building, room 128, 8:30 am - 5 pm, or call
Volunteer Services to arrange for a pickup. The shop, open 10 am - 3 pm Monday
through Friday, is staffed entirely by volunteers, including Julia Nicefaro, thrift shop
manager, and her husband, Ralph. Anyone interested in volunteering at the shop
should call Volunteer Services, 789-3480.
YNHH celebrates Nurse Week
The hospital marked Nurse Week May 5 - 9 with a series of special events,
including chair massages, breakfasts and the annual blessing of the hands. At a
nurse appreciation luncheon on the York Street Campus Kathleen Kenyon, RN,
(right), nursing director, Medicine and Geriatrics, served some tasty pasta salad
to Deborah Thompson, RN, Cardiac Stress Laboratory. At an ice cream social at
the Saint Raphael Campus, Michael Holmes, senior vice president, Operations,
and chief integration officer, SRC, chatted with Mary Ann Lesnick, RN,
coordinator, Multi-Surgical Specialties.
Meet your HRO trainers - sign up for
a session
As of early May, nearly 5,000 Yale-New Haven Hospital employees – about 36
percent – had received high reliability organization (HRO) training. That brings the
hospital closer to its 2014 PIP goal – to have 99 percent of employees trained on
the HRO safety behaviors by Sept. 30. Employees are encouraged to register soon
for an upcoming training session by visiting Employee Self Service and clicking the
course name HRO Getting to Zero. Nearly 200 employees and managers are
certified as HRO trainers, including (l-r): Heather Cherry, RN, Medicine; Jacqueline Epright, project manager, Cost and Value Positioning; and Lonnie Avery, tissue
and transfusion safety officer, Laboratory Medicine. A video showing examples of
the HRO safety behaviors is available on the YNHH intranet, under departments,
Women’s Services, on the safety page.