This is a challenging time for medicine. Yet with change and challenge comes the opportunity to shape an even better future for our patients. I am excited to have the opportunity to serve in my new capacity and look forward to achieving great things together over the next two years.  Building on our success and the quality of our physicians, MUSC Physicians and MUSC Health, are ready to evolve into a fully integrated health care delivery system, capable of providing outstanding quality of care to our patients. The ultimate goal of our MUSC Health Clinical Strategic Plan is to be recognized among the top 25 academic medical centers in the country.    

I look forward to working with all of MUSCP faculty and staff and am personally committed to help us deliver the best in comprehensive and innovative care to our patients.  The only way to provide the highest level of service and quality is to have an energized and committed workforce.  To this end, I am focused on our organization being physician engaged and responsive to the needs of the patients we serve.    

June 6, 2013 marked the last MUSC Physicians Board of Directors meeting under the leadership of Dr. Costello as president of MUSCP. During the President's Report, Dr. Costello presented the accomplishments of the corporation over the past four years.

(Dr. Costello, pictured center, thanked and recognized the service of two community leaders rotating off the board: L to R Marcia Purday and Robert Bowles, at the June 6 meeting)

       One of the accomplishments Dr. Costello mentioned was the amendments to the MUSCP bylaws. According to the Amended and Restated Bylaws, the board structure was reduced from 37 to 20 directors. Since the bylaws were approved in December, the MUSC Physicians Nominating Committee, led by its chair, Dr. David Adams, has been diligently asking for nominations for the 10 elected director seats: eight chairs from MUSC clinical departments and two at-large members.

       The Nominating Committee received all nominations and interviewed the qualified candidates for each director's seat and compiled a slate for the eight chairs and a slate for the 2 at-large members. The MUSCP Board approved the slate presented for the eight chair seats at its March meeting. Also this past spring, MUSCP membership voted via electronic voting and elected the two at-large seats. The last action of the MUSCP Board at its June meeting was election of officers of the new Board.

The PATH initiative, being led by Dr. Peter Zwerner, was introduced to the organization in the summer of 2012 and supports MUSC's goal of becoming a top 25 academic medical center by 2015. To date, MUSC's PATH initiative has made progress in the following areas:

• Reduction in wait times to get appointments
• Reduction in visit types from 1200 to 300, simplifying the scheduling process
• Departments, such as Neurology, developed open access clinics, eliminating patient backlog on wait lists, and increasing availability for referrals and new patients. 
• Departments and divisions increasing new patient volume-
  • Cardiology           +1626 visits per year
  • OB/GYN               +1458 visits per year
  • Neurology            +1536 visits per year

• Patient Access Center Established
• Instituted accountability by setting service level and agent productivity goals:

MUSCP Morehead Survey Results

Our employee commitment score this year is 4.07, down  from last year's score of 4.11. This score reflects the degree of commitment employees feel towards their workplace. While all organizations prefer an increase in their scores year over year, we look at this as an opportunity to work even harder this year to engage you and make this the workplace you want it to be.

A few things you will hear about in the next few months in response to the survey are -

• The executive staff will select three items identified as needing improvement and develop an action plan which will be shared with you. Regular progress updates will be reported.
• Human Resources will work with department managers helping facilitate meetings with staff where department specific results will be shared and discussed.  An outcome of these meetings will be formal action plans identifying improvements specific to the department.
• A leadership development program for middle managers is being created.  All managers who scored in Tier III of the survey will attend.

One question on the survey with a low score related to participants' beliefs that information gathered from the survey would actually be used to make improvements. We are committed to making this happen and will include MUSCP membership in this process.

Michelle Wiles

Chief Human Resources Officer

New patient satisfaction survey tool

deployed to all sites July 1