Teamwork in Action

By Barbara Buczynski, RN and Katie Callahan, RN

Does this scenario sound familiar?

Meet Mr. C, a 66 year old man living alone in a second floor apartment, accessible only by outside stairs. He has had no health care in many years due to his inability to exit his home safely. Mr. C has eligible benefits from the VA Medical System as well as from Social Security, both of which he has not accessed. He was referred to the VNA with diabetes, osteomyelitis, 5 open wounds, depression, and deconditioning. He has a supportive friend nearby that provides limited assistance but she has health issues of her own.

Mr. C's care involved the following services working together; RN, LPN, PT, OT, CRS, and WOCN. Today, he has 1 small open area remaining, he manages outside stairs safely with supervision, is participating in his own care, and keeping MD appointments. How did we accomplish this?

It took a team- a group of people with a variety of experiences, skills and talents working to help each other achieve a common goal. Working as a team took the dedication of every player contributing his or her skills and attributes. This was well demonstrated in the case conferencing amongst all VNA providers.

Here are a few essential TEAMWORK elements;

• Trust: allows team members to be honest about their strengths and weaknesses. They know they can rely on each other. Trust is the glue that holds teams together.
• Empathy: allows us to imagine ourselves in another person's situation. It means being aware of and appreciating another person's experiences and feelings.
• Attitude: allow us to expect the best from each other, recognize and resolve small conflicts and make the best of difficult situations together.
• Mutual Respect: comes in recognizing and upholding the rights and dignity of another person. This allows us to celebrate each other's success, share disappointments, and work towards a solution together.

We think this is an excellent example of this week's Service Excellence standard in action. Thank you all for continuing to promote a positive workday!

Our Service Standards in Action

We have had some great feedback and suggestions from our last two Service Standards, Workplace Safety and Workplace Cleanliness. Teams are getting creative with their huddles and thinking of ways to incorporate these Standards into their daily routines. Here are some ideas that staff came up with:

Workplace Safety

• Keep your work area neat/clean/organized
• Do not use your cell phone while driving
• Report unsafe situations as soon as they are noticed
• Make sure hallways are clear
• Entrances  and exits should be unblocked
• Spills should be wipe up as soon as happened
• Employees should be wearing shoes with proper soles (e.g. rubber)
• Electrical cords should be taped down or with rubber protectors to avoid tripping  hazards
• Make sure to be aware of our surroundings when we come and go from a patients home
• Avoid finger sticks by following our procedures on how to properly dispose of sharps (and teach our patients to do the same).

Workplace Cleanliness

• I always feel better and more organized when I clean out my nursing bag and reorganize my supplies for the next week. A friend of mine once told me that the condition of someone's pocketbook will reflect their "state of mind", I feel the same about my nursing bag. After a busy week, my mind often needs a "refresh".
• Geri Spina, Clinical Services Manager in the Needham office, put this standard into action by placing this sign in the kitchen:

We hear so many great comments and stories around service excellence in action

When you entourage others, you are pushing the first domino over. You will not believe the ripple effects of your effort.

Please take a moment to share and recognize examples of excellence in action. Simply email me at mcampbell@vnab.org  with the word SPOTLIGHT in the subject line.

This Weeks SPOTLIGHT is on the Managed Care Team

Just recently Downtown Team manager, Judy Sojack,  sent along a communication to recognize Theresa Bison; leader in managed care.

Patient received a notification from his insurance plan that they were waiting for clinical documentation to process claim. I called Theresa to inquire which Insurance Verification staffer handled his insurance. Theresa identified who it was, then offered to follow up with the staffer and to contact patient to reassure him that this would be resolved promptly. This made me feel that she empathized with his situation, and that she was extending herself to produce a solution. I was ever so impressed by how helpful Theresa was. Much appreciated!  - Judy Sojack RN

A few weeks later clinical manager Jessica Potts team 26 sent an email  complimenting the excellent communication style of  Jocelyn Lucier again on the Managed Care Team

Jessica wrote this about Jocelyn:

I just wanted to say that this is one of the nicest, most helpful, most collaborative and clear and respectful work-related emails that I have ever received. Thank you, Jocelyn.  - Jessica

Special thanks to Judy and Jessica for taking the time to recognize and encourage colleagues for a job well done!! Who would you like to shine a Spotlight on?

McKesson System Upgrade for Home Care and Hospice

By Kathy Schuft, Clinical Application Specialist

The agency will be applying the Spring Regulatory Update to the McKesson System on Wednesday, April 1st for VNAB Home Care and Hospice. Changes for VNAB Home Care will be communicated in a later Connecter article. Hospice changes will be communicated separately. 

Here is what you need to know about the night of the update:

• The system will be shutdown at 9pm sharp on Wednesday, April 1st
• During the shutdown the following systems will be unavailable:
• Horizon Homecare for VNAB & Hospice
• TeleHealth Interface
• WebChart
• Web Referrals

• Laptop Users:
  • Full detail and instructions regarding the ESD transfer will be communicated in an email and/or next Connecter article.
  • It is most likely that the ESD transfer will need to be performed in the office.  Please stay tuned for details.

• iPadUsers and Office Staff:
• You must be signed out of the system by 8:45pm to avoid losing any documentation
• Please do not log on again before 6am the next morning

If you have any questions please contact Kathy Schuft at 617-886-6968 or kschuft@vnab.org. 

VNAB Supply Order Change Effective April 1, 2015

Byram Medical's Customer Service Excellence Center in Worcester, MA will be prepared to handle all of VNAB's supply calls beginning April 1, 2015. VNAB nurses will be able to order supplies for all patients, regardless of insurance plan, using the Byram Medical Supply Phone Order System at 800-248-4546. 

The Byram phone order 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. The Byram phone Reps are product experts, and will answer your product questions efficiently. They will alert you promptly if there are any "special approval" needs for off Formulary items, and they will give you email confirmation that your supply order has been shipped to your patient. 

The last VNAB Supply Order training session will take place on Sunday, March 22. The VNAB Supply Line will close on April 1 at 12 noon. Please contact Judy Sojack at 617-886-6801 or jsojack@vnab.org with any questions.

Infectious Disease Conference

See below for an invitation to the Infectious Disease Conference to be held on Tuesday, March 31, 2015. While this free event is not offering CEU credits, it promises to be a great presentation on infectious disease preparedness. Please see the bios of the confirmed speakers to date.

• Colin Basler, DVM, MPH, who is an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the CDC. Dr. Basler was a part of the CDC's response team for Ebola and can speak to both national and international infectious disease response.
• Alfred DeMaria, Jr., M.D., who you may know as our State Epidemiologist. In addition, Dr. DeMaria serves as the President of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and will be speaking to the work done by that organization, as well.
• Alexander Isakov, MD, MPH, who serves as the Director, Section of Prehospital and Disaster Medicine and Executive Director, Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response at Emory University. 

Best Practice Committee Monthly Update

By Joan Roth, Manager of Special Initiatives & Best Practice Committee Member

Throughout the organization, we are committed to the goal of reducing our rehospitalization rate. The VNAB's goal is to have all patients admitted by nursing to have their 2nd nursing visit within 48-hours of start of care.

For the month of February 2015, the VNAB's rate for having the second nursing visit within 48-hours of start of care for high-risk patients was 62%. This is lower than our rate for January, which was 63%.

We are also promoting two additional interventions that are best practices for keeping patient's from being rehospitalized.

• The first best practice intervention is that continuity of care with  providers improves patient outcomes. To support this practice we will be reporting on the percentage of patients who received their 2nd nursing visit by the nurse case manager. The rate for the month of February was 57% which is higher than the rate for January which was 54%.
• The second best practice intervention is that the patient have a physician follow up visit within 7-14 days after a discharge from an acute care hospital. The rate for February was 76% which is higher the rate in January was which was 75%.

Thanks for your continued efforts to keep patients out of the hospital particularly during the four weeks after they first come home from the hospital. The next report will be for the month of March.

 

 

Back to Top