Service Excellence:  Handling Customer Complaints

By Kathy Souleotis, Patient Services Manager

Handling customer/patient complaints is never easy. We all do our best to meet the needs of our patients, but at times it can be difficult. How we respond to these complaints makes such a difference.  

I recently witnessed staff members addressing a complaint and taking the proper action to the patient's satisfaction. The patient was experiencing a great deal of anxiety managing a new ostomy. She had made several calls to the agency for assistance and received multiple visits from different clinicians. The patient became frustrated with inconsistent staffing and ongoing difficulties with the appliance. She stated she was losing confidence in the ability of staff to help her become independent.

Joyce Hart, RN, visited the patient and utilized LEAP as a service recovery measure with this patient. She listened and empathized with the patient, demonstrating she cared. She asked how best to resolve the problem and worked with the patient to developed a plan. Joyce set up joint visits with the primary nurse, Mary Buccieri, to create consistency in teaching. She identified a better appliance and communicated with the outpatient WOCN and the physician to ensure all members of the team were in agreement with the plan of care. This new plan has decreased the patient's anxiety and after-hour phone calls.

Mary and Joyce continue to anticipate the patient's needs and have provided visits as needed. The plan of care is ongoing with the goal of patient independence. The result of their hard work is an increase in the patient's confidence in our staff and in her own ability to self manage.

Thank you all for your patience and professionalism when dealing with our patients.

Communication Guide and iPhone Deployment Update

Cell phone deployment continues during scheduled in-services and team meetings. Please note that Verizon representatives will be on-site during the following CoaguChek sessions to distribute phones to designated staff.

• Needham Tuesday, February 3
• Worcester: Wednesday, February 4
• Needham: Thursday, February 5
• Southborough: Friday, February 6 

More dates will be published in the Connecter as they are scheduled. 

A Communication Guide, which outlines agency standards and usage guidelines, can be found by clicking here. It will also be available for pickup during the deployment sessions. This Communication Guide must be followed by all staff, both office- and field-based. It covers usage guidelines for office phones in addition to cell phones.

Please contact Kelly Frew at kfrew@vnab.org or your manager with any questions.

VNAB Supply Order Update

By Judy Sojack, Patient Services Manager

The VNAB will be making changes in how we order patient supplies. Byram Medical's Customer Service Excellence Center in Worcester, MA is now prepared to handle all of our supply calls.

VNAB clinicians will be able to order supplies for all patients, regardless of insurance plan, using the Byram Medical Supply Phone Order System. This process will be similar in many ways to using the VNAB Supply Line, except that you will be speaking live with a customer service representative. Byram has assembled a dedicated five-person customer service group who will be working to take our supply orders. They are product experts, and will be able to answer your product questions efficiently. They will also be able to alert you promptly if there are any "special approval" needs for off-formulary items, and they will be able to give you voice to voice or email confirmation that your supply order has been shipped to your patient. 

Training sessions will be conducted in the Charlestown and Braintree offices by Stacie Craig, our Byram Account Manager. The training sessions, which will take approximately 30-40 minutes, are as follows:

• February 5 at 8:30AM in Braintree
• March 5 at 8:30AM in Charlestown
• March 5 at 2:30PM in Charlestown
• March 10 at 8:00 AM in Quincy
• A separate weekend training session will be announced

Please see your manager with any questions.

Wound V.A.C. Training in Braintree Rescheduled

By Joan Fall, Manager of Orientation and Education

Michael Deely, our KCI representative, will hold a wound V.A.C. training session for all interested clinicians in the Braintree office on Monday, Feb 9 from 3-4 p.m.

To sign up, please contact Joan Fall at 781-535-5426 or email jfall@vnab.org.

Hand Hygiene

By Beverly Salate, Clinical Services Manager & Infection Control

Per the Joint Commission, VNA Care Network is required to have a separate tool for monitoring hand hygiene by clinicians. This requirement began in 2012; here are compliance stats for the past three years for VNA Care Network clinicians:

• 2012 - 86.88%
• 2013 - 89.75%
• 2014 - 92.87%

It is great to see the numbers going up each year, BUT, to stop the spread of infection we need to strive for 100% compliance for 2015.

It is important for all clinicians to remember to wash hands for 20-30 seconds with soap and water when first entering a patient's home. If unable to have immediate access to a sink, it is acceptable to use hand-sanitizing gel, rubbing into hands for 30-50 seconds. (hands should be washed with soap and water as soon as you are able.)

In between procedures on the patient, it is okay to use hand-sanitizing gel as long as the patient does not have any type of infectious disease processes going on. In those circumstances soap and water must be used.

Please contact Bev Salate at bsalate@vnacarenetwork.org or your manager with any questions.

Process for "Remove Visit"

By Clinical Applications Department

Recently the "Remove Visit" option in McKesson was turned off in an effort to decrease the amount of "lost" or deleted documentation by clinicians. If a clinician needs a visit removed because it was opened in error, call the Clinical Application Help Line:

617-886-6730 (X6730)

Please leave the following information in your voicemail message:

• Clinician name
• Patient name
• VNAB#
• Date of visit to be removed

The Clinical Application Department is logging and monitoring the number of calls regarding remove visit to evaluate this new process.

Please do not start a visit in an effort to identify the patient or review the record. Visits should not be started until you arrive at the home. You may review a record by adding the patient to the tree in Cases. If there is more than one patient with the same name please contact your team for verification. We have offered McKesson's new homepage to all per visit and LPN staff to overcome the problem of patient identification. If you do not have the homepage and would like to learn about it please call the number listed above.

HHA Corner

By Elaine Buckley, Patient Services and HHA Manager

The DPH survey went well with the HHA supervisions. The HHA Assignment was in the patient's home on the joint visit they made...thanks Merle!!

The HHA Department will continue to call the patient before the assignment gets to the home and talk to the patient or family about its arrival, and where to place the assignment. The charting of HHA supervisions were in good compliance. I want to thank you all for your attention to this detail. It made such a huge difference!

I was charged with many record reviews to assess compliance of HHA supervision. The supervisions were great but I did notice we could run into difficulty with HHA orders.

Please range your HHA orders 1-3x/week or 3-5x/week or 4-7x/week. This gives the HHA Department wiggle room if the aide is out. When the orders are 2-3x/week and the aide is out sick once and the patient cancels once, then we are out of compliance.

As always, thanks for all your help with this.