Volume 1, Issue 12
Through Dec. 15, 2008 |
The Next Step
Hospital leaders today and tomorrow get their deepest looks yet at an IT system that would electronically integrate all hospital operations.  |
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| Sheryl Reichenbach, RN (l), and Kristin Paston, RN, lead UCH's Medical Emergency Team.SS | |
Avoiding Code Blues
The Medical Emergency Team helps spot signs of a patient sliding toward cardiopulmonary arrest and advises providers on ways to prevent a "code blue." Prominently displayed yellow cards help too. |
Drugs as Loss Leaders
It's a marketing strategy that works for retail giants like Walmart, which uses acres of consumer goods to subsidize $4 prescriptions. Without stocking candy, clothing, and appliances, hospitals like UCH can't follow suit. |
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| Interventional Cardiology's John Carroll, MD, uses a database of referring physicians to cement relationships and build business. | |
Why Referrals Happen
The Interventional Cardiology Department's "outside referral database" helps specialists (like John Carroll, above) and support staff maintain vital relationships with hundreds of referring physicians from seven states. |
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| Work at CeDAR helped Veronica Booz with her award-winning short film about post-traumatic stress disorder. | |
A Bit of Hollywood
on Quentin Street
CeDAR staffer Veronica Booz (above) won a film festival award for her short film on post-traumatic stress disorder. | |
"Lean" patient discharge pilot yields results And surprises. Borrowing process improvement principles from Toyota, 12 West Medicine is discharging more patients before 2 p.m. and debunking some hospital urban legends along the way, says one of the project's leaders, Lorna Prutzman, RN, MS (above). 
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Contacting the Help Desk by Web About 25 percent of the inquiries to the Help Desk come in via voice message or e-mail, while only about 5 percent arrive via the Web -- a share IT would like to increase dramatically. Read why:
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A voice for deaf and hard-of-hearing patients With its new videophone, UCH became the nation's second hospital to transform communication for the deaf and hard of hearing from what Rebecca Novinger of the Marion Downs Hearing Center (above) calls the "caveman" days of TeleTypewriters. Next: videophones throughout the hospital?
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The tobacco ban, revisited Five months into it, UCH figures its no-tobacco policy has worked very well, with one exception: discarded cigarette butts from a handful of regular violators. The best answer, leaders say, is more employee involvement, but another one is available: tougher discipline.
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Baby abduction exercise could lead to changes A mid-November exercise found hospital personnel generally well-prepared for a "Code Pink" emergency. But a debriefing revealed additional steps needed to further bolster the hospital's defenses against an attempted kidnapping.
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The clinician always rings twice Until recently, heavy call volume to Clinical Lab sometimes meant three or four calls -- or more. But a new phone system has helped the lab manage calls better and quieted what had been a dull roar of phone-ringing and tube-dropping.
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Inside the Insider: Tilting at silos Commentary: Visitors arrive from the Midwest, painting a vision of an information technology promised land. Plus: what you read and what you said last issue.
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Around UCH Our regular round-up of goings-on, big and small, in and around the hospital, including a patient care retreat (above), turkey give-aways, a page-turning project, telemarketer turn-arounds and more.
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UCH in the news Bigger patients need bigger scanners; counting cancer cells; a novel security program; more. Mentions: Anthony Elias, Adit Ginde, M. Scott Lucia, Joe McCord, Kerry Moss, Jennifer Richer, Matthew Taylor, Vicki Tosher.
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