DREAM TEAMS
Building Employee Engagement in Brooklyn and Queens
A Carlos Santana guitar solo is playing on the PA system in the waiting room of the Brookdale Hospital emergency department. A stout Latina woman with short black hair is swaying to the music, eyes closed. Suddenly she goes rigid and begins coughing convulsively into her sleeve. The coughing fit subsides and she resumes her swaying. Two seats away, a 300-pound man with dreadlocks doesn't seem to notice. He's giving me a mad-dog stare that could freeze Prestone II. I'm not taking it personally, though, because he was staring the same way half an hour ago when I arrived. Behind him is the room's most hapless occupant: a man with a bandaged head lying on a gurney. He's handcuffed and guarded by two policemen.
100,000 such patients pass through the Brookdale emergency department each year, every one of them expecting and deserving excellent medical care. Admittedly, the staff at this Brooklyn, New York hospital has some special challenges posed by the urban environment. But the majority of Brookdale's challenges are shared by hospitals throughout the United States. What makes Brookdale special, in part, is the way the hospital and its sister organizations-Flushing Hospital and Jamaica Hospital in Queens--are facing those challenges.
In the Beginning
Margeurite Verdi is V.P. of Human Resources at Medisys Health Care Network, the non-profit organization that operates the three New York hospitals. She looks like the quintessential professional with her smartly cut blonde hair and tailored pink blazer. Her demeanor suggests someone who is thoughtful and thorough. "I remember it vividly," she recalls. "After our meeting about the Workforce Engage employee engagement survey, the senior leaders asked me, 'Web-based survey… This is doable, right?' I said, 'Sure.'"
"Well, I didn't get much sleep that night. Why had I said that? Many employees had no access to computers, and some had never even used one. Workforce Engage is supposed to build teamwork and sense of community, and it began the next day: Information Systems, Performance Improvement, Nursing Staff Development-they all got involved with HR and Administration to make it happen. Special rooms were set up with computers; volunteers signed up to help employees who had never used the internet. I thought it was interesting how Workforce Engage brought everyone together right from the start. In the end, we more than doubled the response rate we'd had with past paper surveys."
After the survey was completed and the results analyzed, Medisys administration called together a group of fifty hospital employees from across the three campuses. "They came from all levels of the organization, not just from management," explains Bruce Flanz, the charismatic Executive Vice President and COO of Medisys. "They were people who had demonstrated leadership in the hospital or in their community. We asked each of them to identify five people they wanted to have on their Workforce Engage team. Then we asked each team to choose an objective related to employee engagement."
Dream Teams
Oommen Chacko, the Supervisor for Building Services at Jamaica Hospital, is dressed for his interview in a blue pin-striped suit he might have borrowed from Al Capone. The dangerously handsome twenty-something has latte colored skin and moussed black hair. Oommen is the leader of the "Lost and Found" Workforce Engage Team. "Employees were always getting stopped by patients and visitors asking for directions," he told me. "Often these people were in the totally wrong building. You want to be helpful and take them where they need to go, but you have to do your job, too. So we decided to initiate a campus mapping system. There will be a map in the parking area showing all the buildings, and another map as you enter each building." Oomen acknowledged that his team members were skeptical at first. "We had all been on committees before. But by the middle they were enthusiastic and excited to see that senior management was so helpful. We were able to see accomplishment in what we were doing."
Tyrone Johnson from Central Sterile is six-foot-four with long dreadlocks and a warm, quiet demeanor. He's the leader of a Workforce Engage team dedicated to building the sense of community in Flushing Hospital. "Togetherness-a family feeling," Tyrone explains. "We decided to organize a talent show for employees. We have singers, dancers, and a guitar player signed up so far. It's a way to get know people in other departments." Togetherness isn't just about improving employee satisfaction; it also has an effect on performance. "It puts a real person on the other end of the phone call. If I need something from a department and I know someone who works there, I'll get what I need. It's a way to get the job done."
Jamaica Hospital has a Workforce Engage team that is focusing explicitly on this issue of inter-departmental communication. The Jamaica team is addressing the challenge by organizing departmental open houses for Medisys employees. Engineering, Storeroom/Purchasing, Laundry, Central Sterile, Print Shop/Mail Room and the Medical Library are among the departments that have hosted open houses in the last few months. According to COO Bruce Flanz, over 400 employees showed up for an open house in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. "A 17-ounce baby was born that day. People from the nursing home, ambulatory care, engineering-employees who would normally never interact with the NICU-all had a chance to see the kind of expert care the unit provides. Beyond improving inter-departmental understanding and communication, think of the marketing benefit: four hundred people will go home and tell their friends and family about the wonderful things we're doing in our NICU. Employees are the best marketing and PR force you can find."
Employees are also a great source of product and service ideas. Maria Smilios and Deborah Duke, clinical nurse managers from Flushing Hospital, are the co-leaders of a Workforce Engage team that is establishing a breast feeding resource center. Maria, who doesn't look nearly old enough to be supervising nurses, has a speaking style as polished as any anchorwoman's. "Oftentimes, patients are referred to outside agencies for breast feeding support when we could provide this service ourselves. We could rent breast pumps, sell them, and have items that promote breast feeding. We want to support breast feeding. We want to be community leaders in this area. It's also something that will make money for the hospital in the long run." The same team is also hoping to establish an internet café for hospital employees, either in the cafeteria or the library. "We want employees to be able to do something for themselves during their break time," Maria explains. "To surf the web, do some online shopping, or e-mail a family member." Her co-leader, Deborah Duke, strikingly dressed in a red blazer, white blouse, and blue silk scarf, adds, "If people don't feel good about coming to work, they won't put a hundred percent of themselves into what they do. That has a definite effect on clinical care."
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JUST THE FACTS
The Web-based Workforce Engage Survey: 3200 Medisys employees took the 20-minute Workforce Engage survey in October of 2002, logging onto computers at work and at home. Reporting and Training: After the survey results were tabulated and analyzed, Workforce Engage personnel reported the findings to executives and managers, and offered training to department managers in action-planning and dialogue skills. Interpretation and Prioritization: A second Workforce Engage session at each hospital was open to all employees. Hundreds attended each session. Department managers led dialogues with small groups of employees, engaging them to identify priorities and brainstorm solutions. Leading by Example: Management then chose 50 employees from all levels of the organization who had demonstrated leadership abilities, and invited each to lead a task force on employee engagement. Each of the 50 invited 5 other employees to join them. The 50 task forces (Workforce Engage Teams) selected projects and goals by consensus and developed their own action plans. Workforce Engage Teams Include: Outcomes Include: |
Maria and Deborah's Workforce Engage team is just one of many that will make money for the hospital. Perhaps the most dramatic example is the team working on "insurance conversions." Queens has a population of two million, and fully one-third have no health insurance. Emergency Department patients without conventional insurance are known as "self-pays," a term usually synonymous with "no-pays." Medisys does its best to convert these patients to active insurance accounts. That means finding a source of insurance for them or signing them up for Medicaid. In the latter case, for the hospital to be reimbursed for a procedure, the patient must be enrolled in Medicaid within 30 days of being admitted to the hospital. The insurance conversion Workforce Engage team, by coordinating the Case Management, Social Work, and Finance departments, begins the conversion process earlier and follows through on it more effectively. The result has been a phenomenal 66% increase in conversions. The dollar impact on the bottom line has not yet been calculated, but it will be substantial.
Perhaps the most impressive tale of success, however, is the SMILE Team. The acronym stands for Sincerely Make It a Loving Environment, and the team's objective is to improve customer service in the Schulman and Schachne nursing home, Brookdale's long-term care facility. In the interest of poetic consistency, I coax a SMILE out of team leader Lucimar Sambo by holding up two fingers behind her head while the cameraman takes her photograph. With raven-colored hair set off by a royal blue suit and red lipstick, Lucimar barely comes up to my shoulder, but she's a giant in the confidence department. "We put up posters monthly with new ideas," she explains. "For example, if you see [a patient or visitor] who looks confused, offer to help them. If you are answering a phone, pick up by the third ring. And when you reply, do it with a smile. There really is a big difference. There is a culture change among the staff and everyone is very positive about it." Two weeks before my interview with Lucimar, Schulman and Schachne completed their JCAHO survey. The nursing home received an astonishing 99% score. During the final interview, the JCAHO surveyor commented on how friendly everyone was. The SMILE team strikes again.
The Journey
Back in the executive offices of Jamaica Hospital, COO Bruce Flanz is seated behind a desk that proves he A) has a lot of work to do, and B) is not obsessive about neatness. With his bushy moustache and sympathetic eyes, he bears an eerie resemblance to Albert Einstein. Tapping the right arm of his chair for emphasis-something he must do often, as the vinyl padding is patched with duct tape-he says, "The Workforce Engage projects themselves are very important, of course. But it's really about the process, the journey. It's about people working together in ways they have not worked together before. It's about breaking down barriers and improving communication throughout the hospital system. The Workforce Engage teams get people engaged in the vision and mission of the hospital. And that, in turn, leads to excellence in patient care."
Matthew Simon is The Director of Business Development for Quality Data Management. He may be reached at mattsimonmx@juno.com. For more information visit www.workforceengage.com.
