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Medical Leader News - PMC to present at Studer conferencePMC to present at Studer conference
PIKEVILLE — James Brock remembers the early stages of Pikeville Medical Center’s Discharge Call Manager system.
Brock, who serves as director of Telemetry at PMC, hit the ground running with the program.
His unit bought into it. Pikeville Medical Center bought into it. And one of the world’s largest health care consulting firms is now using PMC as an example.
Pikeville Medical Center has been chosen to give a presentation on its Discharge Call Manager program at the “What’s Right in Healthcare” conference in Atlanta, Ga. on June 18-20.
The conference is one of the world’s largest peer-topeer learning conferences in the U.S.
Quint Studer, a New York Times best-selling author and founder of the Studer Group, hand-picked PMC for the presentation.
“To be selected to present at this conference really validates our commitment to always provide excellent health care to the region,” said Debbie Puckett, chief executive officer of Rehab Services at Pikeville Medical Center. “We want our patients to know that our care extends far beyond their stay here at Pikeville Medical Center.”
The hospital’s Discharge Call Manager program was trialed in a few departments in September 2007 as a way to improve quality of care. It is a great success and Pikeville Medical Center makes an effort to contact 100 percent of its discharged patients.
“We do this for a number of reasons,” Brock said. “We want to contact them to make sure they understand their discharge instructions, understand medicine requirements, answer their questions and make sure they are following up on doctor appointments.”
Patients are also asked several questions about the quality of care.
“Our goal in this is twofold: We want to know if we could do anything differently to make their stay more efficient and comfortable, and we want to know if they would like to recognize a member of our staff for their excellent care.”
Typically, nurses, who provided care during a patients stay, will make the discharge calls.
“That adds a personal touch,” Puckett said. “We want our patients to realize that we appreciate them and are proud that they chose us for their health care needs.”
If a patient wishes to recognize a nurse or staff member, the director of the unit is notified immediately in an e-mail message.
“We follow up on these compliments by placing them on bragging boards and recognizing these employees during regular staff meetings,” Brock explained.
One PMC testimonial was recently featured on the Studer Group Web site www.studergroup.com about a heart patient who, during a Discharge Call conversation, a nurse discovered this patent could not afford her prescriptions.
This call prompted the PMC employee to take action.
Through the efforts of the hospital’s social workers, the patient was able to get her medicine for no charge.
“The patient was initially too embarrassed to tell us this during her stay,” Puckett said.
“If we had not made contact with the patient through our Discharge Call Manager program, the patient may have never been able to take her medicine.
“We have had other patents seek care because of symptoms we recognized during discharge calls.”
Brock’s 25-minute presentation will focus on the implementation and the statistics of the program.
“In our unit (Telemetry), we have made 1,050 calls and have made contact with 760 of our patients,” he said.
“That’s amazing numbers, and it’s gratifying that I work for a hospital that strives to get in contact with 100 percent of our discharged patients.”
Brock added, “From the quality aspect, we want to know if we can improve on anything we are doing. Our goal is to always provide excellent care to our patients.”
Jerry Johnson, who serves as chief operating officer at PMC, will make the trip to Atlanta next month to witness the hospital taking center stage with other leading health care providers from across the nation.
“Being asked to present at one of the nation’s premier health care conferences is a strong recognition of the great job our employees are doing in always providing excellent care to our patients,” Johnson said.
“This is another significant step in our journey to being one of the best hospitals in the nation.”
Studer Group is an outcomebased health care consulting firm devoted to teaching evidence-based tools and processes that organizations can immediately use to create and sustain outcomes in service and operational excellence.
They have worked with hundreds of health care systems, hospitals, and medical groups since the firm’s inception in 1999.
It also operates other facilities in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
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