WHEN ROUNDING IS HARDWIRED:
Delnor Community Hospital
"When we first started rounding in 1999, we didn't see results," explains Linda Deering, Vice President and CNO at Delnor-Community Hospital, Geneva, IL. "But we were rounding on patients, instead of employees. Five years ago, we didn't understand that rounding on employees is Job One. You have to address employee needs first to raise patient satisfaction."
"We find that when nurses round with physicians, it strengthens their relationship and mutual respect. What we thought would be good for patients also turned out to be good for doctors and nurses."
Linda Deering, RN, MSN, Vice President and CNO Delnor Community Hospital
CEO Craig Livermore correlates Delnor's high patient satisfaction to thank you notes and leadership training which were implemented in response to results of a 1999 employee satisfaction climate survey where employees cited concerns about trust and communication issues between staff and leaders. He also credits the implementation of a leadership evaluation tool to turning the flywheel faster. "Results aren't really going to move until behaviors are aligned with evaluations," he says. "You can beg, encourage and control, but if there's no incentive for accountability, we can always rationalize that's the thing we don't have time to do."
Today, service and operational excellence is hardwired at Delnor-Community Hospital. Seventy-five percent of every leader's merit increase is based on the results of his unit/team and 25% is based on how well the organization achieved its results.
Delnor has achieved what Studer Group calls "Five Pillar" results under people (employee satisfaction and retention), service (patient and physician satisfaction), quality (measured by medication error rate, inpatient fall rate, mortality rate, Medicare LOS, and other indicators); growth (market share, physician volume) and financials (net patient revenue, cost per discharge, and DCH operating margin.)
Delnor's Results are Hardwired
8 Results reported in percentile rankings compared to all hospitals in Press-Ganey database (versus raw percentages.)
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