Lafayette General Medical Center

Lafayette General Medical Center celebrates its Centennial in 2011, and for the past 100 years has acted on its mission as a community owned hospital to improve, maintain and restore the health of the people in the communities we serve.

Through the years, Lafayette General has undergone many significant changes, none as apparent as the total renovation currently underway to modernize our facility. This change to our physical environment pales in compassion to the changes brought about by our Journey to Excellence (J2E), initiated in January 2009. Employees of Lafayette General have experienced a renewed spirit and commitment to promoting a quality of care found nowhere else in our community. We move forward knowing that this commitment to purpose and worthwhile work, in order to make a difference, will continue to set us apart.

Changing our culture – People

In typical south Louisiana fashion, we kicked off our efforts to promote organizational and cultural change with a "Jazz Funeral." During this event, we encouraged staff to "bury" old habits, bad attitudes, or inefficient processes and then stand ready to embrace upcoming change. To then change employees' attitudes, behavior, and morale, we then introduced Lafayette General's first ever Standards of Behavior. In December 2009, employees committed to our S.E.R.V.I.C.E. values of Supportiveness, Etiquette, Respect, Vibrancy, Integrity, Communication and Excellence-in service delivery. Each month, the Standards Team creatively rolled out campaigns to raise awareness and accountability house-wide. In fact, our success in these campaigns was featured as a "Best-Practice" at the 2010 What's Right in Health Care conference.

Communication continues to be a key piece in the engagement of our employees. We have more than doubled attendance at quarterly employee forums since beginning our J2E. Just last month, over 1,000 employees attended a motivational session by Liz Jazwik, author of "Eat That Cookie", who encouraged positivity in the workplace.

We regularly recognize employees through our various award programs such as, Heart of Gold /Heart of the Century, Standard Setters, and the Making a Difference award, to name a few. Noticing positive change and regularly recognizing it in each other has improved interdepartmental relationships. Also contributing to improved teamwork and job satisfaction was the introduction of Shared Governance Councils. These councils have brought patient care staff together, on all levels, in an effort to improve patient safety and quality of care.

Through the encouragement of communication, teamwork and workplace positivity, we have significantly decreased RN turnover since the inception of our J2E.

Finally, in 2010 we re-instituted Employee Engagement Surveys to the organization after a ten year absence. That year, we had a 49% participation rate, achieving a house-wide engagement score of 70.7%. In 2011, we increased employee participation in the survey to 61% with an engagement score of 74.2% making us the only Press Ganey hospital to improve its score on EVERY question and metric of the engagement survey.

Changing the way we do business – Service

Lafayette General's staff has led the way in changing how we do business in order to improve patient satisfaction. Collaborative care and patient satisfaction teams have led our efforts to advance the patient's perception of care. We proudly developed a new model of care that is patient centered versus task oriented. Responsiveness to patients' needs have been enhanced through the use of evidence-based practices such as hourly rounding, shift huddle reports, leadership rounding, AIDET, and bedside shift reports.

Because of our dedication and high performing staff, Lafayette General has increased its patient satisfaction scores significantly:

Lafayette General's HCAHPS have also risen in response to new delivery of care concepts. Our HCAHPS scores lead the nation in many key areas:

The benefits of change – Quality

The introduction of a collaborative care model, involving caregivers, physicians and support staff, has significantly enhanced quality. This model holds all disciplines accountable for the care our patients receive. The addition of a Chief Medical Officer in 2011 ignited a commitment to excellence, evidenced by improved core measure scores. This improved cooperation between staff and physicians has fostered an environment in which the patient is at the center of all that we do.

The results of these collaborative efforts correlate to the upward trend in our core measures experienced since the start of our journey.

This continued quality improvement by Lafayette General was noted by Studer Group and Press Ganey as a recipient of Excellence in Patient Care for Physicians and Top Improver Award for Emergency Departments, respectively. Other accomplishments include the Studer Award as the most Improved Hospital in Patient Satisfaction and Consumer Choice Award from National Research Corporation two years in a row. HealthGrades ranks Lafayette General in the Top 5% in the Nation for Overall Orthopedic Services and #1 in Louisiana for Overall Orthopedic Services. We are also recognized by HealthGrades as being in the Top 5% in the Nation for Overall Prostatectomy and #1 in Louisiana for GI Surgery and Five-Star Rated for Spine Surgery – 5 years in a row (2006 – 2010).

Funding Our Future

As the only community-owned and managed hospital in Lafayette, we pride ourselves as being true stewards of the community. Our solid financial standing is a result of continued market growth, visionary service adaptation and sound expense management. Our current Operating Margin stands at 2% with AR days down to 65 days compared to 72 days, in January 2009, the start of J2E. Altogether, this has allowed us the opportunity to complete a total renovation to the facility, enhance service lines and improve technology. Above all, it has granted us the opportunity to reinvest in the employees at Lafayette General and share our commitment with the communities we serve.

Changing our look – Growth

Since 1911, Lafayette General has expanded its services and facilities to meet the community's growing needs, with the most current expansion being a "total renovation" to the original structure. The initial construction began in 2007 with the renovation of women's services, creating a modern Birthplace known as the Pavilion for women and children. In the fall of 2009, we began a floor by floor total renovation of the facility, literally "gutting" each floor and rebuilding it to include an additional 50 square feet per room. At the completion of the renovation in October, we will have increased our ICU and Medical/Surgical capacity by an additional 60 beds.

In continuing to expand our services to meet the growing needs of the community, a new pediatric treatment area was added to our Emergency Department. In 2010 we also opened the State's newest comprehensive cancer center, the Cancer Center of Acadiana at Lafayette General. In 2011, we broke ground on additions to our outpatient surgical facility, Lafayette General Surgical Hospital, which will expand the facility by 22,000 square feet.

Lafayette General is home to two daVinci® surgical robots and one of only two CyberKnife® Stereotactic Radiosurgery Systems in the State. Recently, Lafayette General became the first and only healthcare provider in Louisiana to begin treating cancer patients with the TrueBeam™ radiation therapy system, the newest and most advanced system to offer all forms of radiotherapy.

Lafayette General is at the forefront in the development of Accountable Care Organizations and has reached out to area hospitals to form affiliations to provide services to patients outside the metro area of Lafayette, Louisiana. Through these affiliations, we work cooperatively to provide 'best practice' medical care. At Lafayette General, our goal is to establish relationships with area hospitals and healthcare providers to improve patient outcomes through enhanced health care services, thus allowing patients to stay closer to home and family. When a higher acuity healthcare facility is required, those patients are readily transferred to Lafayette General. By sharing information and resources between our facilities, we can reduce variation in how care is delivered.

Lafayette General Medical Center is humbled and honored to be named Studer's Healthcare Organization of the Month. Though our journey is far from over, we are committed to ensuring another 100 pride filled and successful years for our system, its employees, physicians, and most importantly, patients.

David L. Callecod, FACHE
President/CEO
Lafayette General Medical Center
337-289-7443