RROHC™ NEWS FROM HANSTEN HEALTHCARE
FALL 2009
Greetings from Ruth Hansten

As a healthcare provider, you strive for optimal, individualized, relationship-based care, along with satisfying working conditions, and teamwork. As a citizen, you desire superior technical care delivered with the same compassionate focus and respect for your intended results.

Hansten Healthcare provides practical, exemplary service in consulting, based on decades of rich experience in clinical practice, leadership, and administration. We focus on the common building blocks of healthcare services and the systems that support them.

Our mission is to promote healing and wholeness, transforming organizations through relationship enhancement and skill development.

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FINDING OUR WAY IN THE FOG

During Pacific Northwest October mornings, we often peer through some dense cottonball fog before the apple-crisp fall colors shine through. The mist can be disorienting, but we can confirm our direction by listening carefully to the loons and geese calling, skipping and churning through the bay.
  
At work, we are also attempting to cut through impenetrable fog...waiting to formulate a strategy to address the affects of anticipated reforms that could create better care access for all Americans.  But we are not laggards in healthcare!  We can't delay while Congress works.  We also must be more efficient, improve outcomes, perhaps adjust to an EMR that interrupts our normal work flow, and somehow meet requirements created by some unknown person in well-intentioned haste to keep patients safe.  Our work seems to become more complex and messy every day!!  However, RROHC nurses and care providers can rejoice and feel relieved, because no matter what occurs in reimbursement or global delivery systems, we continue to frame all that we do by listening to our patients and their families.   We can always take a deep breath and redirect ourselves to the preferred results of those we serve, and cut through the complexity to create healing.

In the current economy, RROHC leaders must continue to justify their expenses for training staff and keeping RROHC concepts alive in their organizations.  To meet that need, the RROHC faculty has been designing some cost-quality discussions related to the benefits of implementing RROHC concepts.  We showcased the first of these discussions in our Facilitator telephone call on October 19. This was the first RROHC Facilitator session conducted as a webinar.  We presented current research about reimbursement losses and the cost of care for adverse events and hospital acquired conditions (HACs), and the inverse relationship to RROHC practices.  We discussed Using RROHC to Create a Cost-Quality Equation That Benefits Patients and Families.  We talked about RROHC practices that diminish adverse events, including Hospital Acquired Infections, FTR (Failure to Rescue), Pressure Ulcers, Unplanned Readmissions.  Additionally, effective demonstration projects that avoid HAC (Hospital Acquired Conditions) from the news were reviewed.  (I want to emphasize that we are offered practical advice here, not solely research.) 

In future sessions, we will study falls with injuries, pneumonia and other conditions in more depth. 

UPCOMING EVENTS
We will continue to offer the RROHC Revisited Webinar on a period basis for those who need a refresher and those who are new to the RROHC program.  If you are interested in scheduling a complimentary RROHC Revisited Webinar specifically for your team, contact Ruth Hansten at Ruth@hansten.com, or Kathy Watkins at kathy.watkins@hansten.com.

At the end of this month, for the benefit of those who missed the Facilitator call on October 19 and others interested in the topic, we are offering an additional complimentary webinar:

USING RROHC TO CREATE A COST-QUALITY EQUATION THAT BENEFITS PATIENTS AND FAMILIES

Date:  Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Time:  9:30am to 10:30am PACIFIC
Cost:  Free
Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/685611338

DELEGATION, SUPERVISION AND TEAMWORK WORKSHOP: TEAMS AND RESULTS-ORIENTED NURSING CARE

We have discovered that key assistive personnel should attend this full-day on-site workshop with their nurse leaders and staff to create an improved care delivery model and structure.  Contact Ruth Hansten at Ruth@hansten.com, or Kathy Watkins at kathy.watkins@hansten.com to schedule a date/time for your organization.

HOW A GOOD NURSE COULD GO WRONG: DELEGATION, SUPERVISION AND TEAMWORK AT THE POINT OF CARE

We continue to offer this 1.5 hour webinar for organizations or individuals.  Contact Ruth Hansten at Ruth@hansten.com, or Kathy Watkins at kathy.watkins@hansten.com to schedule a webinar for your organization.

NEW RROHC LEVEL 1 SPECIALIST CERTIFICATION PROGRAM BEGINS ON JANUARY 25, 2010

It's time to start identifying key staff at your facility to join the RROHC Level 1 Specialist Program that begins January 25, 2010.  Up to 37% improvement has been evaluated as a result of participation in this program, and countless on-site problems have been avoided or solved through the six-step critical thinking problem-solving process taught in the program.

Take a look at the improvement in delegation skills pre- and post-RROHC Level 1 certification, as shown on the following graph:

Delegation Skills Graph


FACILITATOR INTENSIVE TRAINING MAY 4-6, 2010

Mark your calendars now for Facilitator Intensive Training in the Seattle area on May 4-6, 2010.  We are changing the location of this program to avoid the intense winter storms that have knocked out power in the past.  This timing also places the program in the week prior to Nurses Week and Hospital Week celebrations.  Additional information will be shared as details are finalized.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
THE HEALTH CARE MANAGER

Be sure to check out Ruth's latest article, A Bundle of Best Bedside Practices, published in The Health Care Manager.  Using examples from RROHC facilities and the RROHC Planning and Implementation Manual, Ruth discusses the bundle of 10 best practices and nurse delegation and supervision. 

NURSE LEADER

For a review of why nurses need a template and a structure for their day in order to delegate appropriately, Ruth's Nurse Leader article, Why Nurses Still Must Learn to Delegate is helpful.  The need to improve leadership and supervision skills in nursing has not abated with the current economy and, in some hospitals, reduced staffing to meet the demands of a lower inpatient census.  To respond to a growing number of inquiries regarding how to make a care model work with assistive personnel, we are now offering full-day conferences, as well as a short introductory webinar.

SECOND EDITION OF RROHC IMPLEMENTATION MANUAL ON THE HORIZON

We will soon begin work on the second edition of the Relationship & Results Oriented Healthcare™ Planning and Implementation Manual!  We will be contacting you for outcomes that you may want to share.  We encourage you to be recognized in the new edition for your hard work and the transformation of your organization.  Tell us about topics you wish had been included in the first edition so that we can include them in this next edition.  We aim to help you achieve success in improving healthcare outcomes in your community.
KUDOS TO KIMBERLY!
Kimberly McNally

Our own RROHC star, Hansten Healthcare faculty member Kimberly McNally, was interviewed on the changing nature of strategic planning in hospitals for the September issue of Trustee Magazine.
 
NEW MEMBER OF RROHC TEAM
If you have not already met Ruth's new executive assistant Kathy Watkins via phone or email, you soon will.  We want to take this opportunity to officially welcome Kathy to the RROHC team.  Her background includes over 12 years providing administrative support to hospital CEOs, so she is very familiar with the healthcare scene.  You can reach Kathy via email at kathy.watkins@hansten.com, or by phone at 773-224-6999.