Castle Medical Center, a 160-bed acute care hospital located on the Windward side of the island of O'ahu in Hawaii was founded 50 years ago through the combined efforts of local community members, dedicated physicians, benefactors and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Since its inception Castle Medical Center has been a part of Adventist Health, a Roseville CA based not-for-profit regional delivery network based in four western states. The system includes 19 hospitals as well as numerous clinics and home care agencies. Today, Castle Medical Center is recognized as the key provider of health care services for the Windward O'ahu communities.
In 2010 we critically evaluated our performance and recognized that we had additional room for improvement, especially in relation to our patient experience scores. At this time our patient experience scores were only average at the 50th percentile. We made the decision to engage the Studer Group to partner with us on our journey to true excellence.
Our Studer journey began in mid-2010 when the entire leadership team came together with a sense of purpose and commitment to making Castle Medical Center a stellar organization across all quality, patient, physician and associate satisfaction measures. We have been vigilant in implementing best-practices that include hourly patient rounding, AIDET® adoption, "Take Five" where associates and physicians sit down and listen to patient concerns, nurse leader rounding on patients and associates, implementation of clear patient communication boards, post-discharge phone calls, thank-you cards, bedside shift reports and clear communication about results to all associates and physicians. We have also learned to celebrate our successes widely throughout the organization.
Four times each year we have held a two-day Castle Leadership Institute (CLI) where all of our leaders, including charge nurses, come apart to learn, plan and celebrate. Attendance is mandatory and our leaders have developed a stronger sense of community and collaboration.
Over the last four years we have experienced dramatic and sustained improvement in our overall patient experience scores reaching top-decile in 2013, and remaining at that level today. In addition to our patient experience scores, the number of positive patient comments from post-discharge calls and surveys has also increased dramatically. This has helped personalize the data and validated the effectiveness of our approaches and strategies.
As a result of this focused attention and commitment Castle Medical Center has developed a strong reputation for both quality care and customer service and has been widely recognized for top-decile performance in many quality and satisfaction measures. Some of the awards and recognition we have received in recent years include:
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Acknowledgement by The Joint Commission as a top performer
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Gold Performance Achievement Award for Heart Care and Stroke by the American Heart Association
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Recognition by Johns Hopkins for top performance in patient satisfaction
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Eight annual awards for Best Places to Work in Hawaii
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Healthiest Large Employer in Hawaii for two years
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Cleverly + Associates Community Value Five-star Award
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Excellence in Physician Satisfaction from the Studer Group
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Excellence in Emergency Patient Satisfaction from the Studer Group
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Blue Distinction Center for Knee and Hip Replacement
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Center of Excellence for Bariatric Surgery
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Multiple 5-Star Awards from Professional Research Consultants (PRC) for Employee and Physician Satisfaction
As we continue our journey to excellence we constantly remind ourselves that continued success is highly dependent on hardwiring best practices and ensuring that we are deliberate in our efforts. Through our Castle Leadership Institutes we keep the passion for excellence alive and take time to celebrate our achievements. In the words of one of our physicians "We remember what it used to be like and we like it better now! The patients are happy and we are happy!" We remain dedicated to our mission of "Caring for our community. Sharing God's love" and to the delivery of exceptional care in each and every interaction.