Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto is a 339-bed hospital that offers diagnostic, surgical and rehabilitation services, as well as open-heart surgery and a number of other cardiovascular services. In 2015, U.S. News & World Report ranked it No. 1 in Mississippi. The hospital is American College of Cardiology-accredited for atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and as a Chest Pain Center for percutaneous coronary intervention.
The hospital is in the middle of a $19 million emergency department (ED) expansion project. When complete, the ED will measure more than 42,000 square feet and feature 55 treatment rooms and a new CT scanning room. In addition to adding space, the ED will allow staff to register patients in treatment rooms using mobile technology and the hospital’s electronic medical record.
These changes will help accommodate the increase in patients the department has seen in the past decade. In 2006, Baptist DeSoto’s ED treated about 30,000 patients a year. Last year, it treated double that number.
Baptist DeSoto is part of Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation (BMHCC). One of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health care systems, BMHCC comprises 21 affiliate hospitals in West Tennessee, Mississippi and East Arkansas; more than 4,500 affiliated physicians; a multispecialty physician group with more than 700 providers; home, hospice and psychiatric care; minor medical centers and clinics; a network of surgery, rehabilitation and other outpatient centers; and an education system highlighted by the Baptist College of Health Sciences.
The hospital’s Studer Group journey began in January 2016. Baptist Desoto’s ED team began working on ways to embrace the concepts of rounding on employees and patients to get positive outcomes. Once the ED team realized that patient rounding was more than just visiting with patients and families, they began to focus on quality, safety and providing immediate feedback to staff using the support-coach-support concept. The nurse manager began conducting monthly audits, then transitioned to quarterly audits to ensure the team understood the “why” behind their work.
The nurse manager and the medical staff director also conduct rounds to evaluate the quality and safety of the provider and nursing care. Each Tuesday, the two visit three of a particular provider’s patients at different phases of care to evaluate the patient’s knowledge of their care and their ability to identify the provider and care team. Providers then receive feedback on areas for improvement based on the leaders’ observations. Weekly team work meetings with the director, nurse manager and the medical director provide additional coaching and feedback on improvement opportunities for support staff that provide care to ED patients.
These efforts have created a culture of servant leadership, and the team is open to identifying and removing barriers. Transitioning to the coach-support-coach concept motivated employees to gain feedback and coaching from the nurse leader. They were looking for ways to improve, and they became more engaged. In fact, the department’s employee engagement scores have increased from 3.99 to 4.33 on a 5-point scale. In addition, ED patient experience scores rose from the 7th percentile to the 48th during a 12- month period.