Our Journey to Excellence
Provena Health is a Catholic health system located in Illinois. Provena Health owns and operates six hospitals located in Aurora, Danville, Elgin, Joliet, Kankakee, and Urbana, as well as numerous clinics, five home health agencies, 10 long-term care and senior residence facilities in Illinois and Indiana.
Provena Health is an organization driven by living its mission, vision and values. Although this has always been the goal of our health system since it’s inception in 1997, meeting this goal has been a challenge. We were a system that operated in silos with relatively high turnover, lack of employee pride, minimal communication, bleak financials, and very low patient satisfaction. With these barriers it is apparent why we were struggling to live our mission (Provena Health, a Catholic health system, builds communities of healing and hope by compassionately responding to human need in the spirit of Jesus Christ), our vision (Provena Health providers are known for clinical and service excellence, and are the preferred provider of choice based on responsiveness to community needs, quality, value, and innovation) and our values (Respect, Integrity, Stewardship, Excellence).
In late 2001 things began to change for Provena Health, a new System CEO was named, Mr. William T. Foley. Over the next year Bill formed a strong leadership team both within the corporate office and at the local facilities. Bill and his team brought not only leadership to the organization but a significant focus on the quality of care our patients receive. This focus was again apparent in 2003 when we came to the realization that the historical culture of the organization was what was holding us back from achieving our goals. Our physicians, employees and patients were not satisfied and we needed to make a change quickly.
In late 2003, Provena Health embarkedon a journey to change the culture of the entire organization at the same time. The goal is one Provena Health culture. Although there may be slight differences, the underlying foundation is based on the same principles. Bill aligned the entire leadership team to focus on the simple philosophy that we want to make Provena Health a better place for our employees, physicians, and patients. Our journey began in September 2003 when we brought together 550 leaders from across the system for the first Provena Health Leadership Development Institute (LDI). This was our symbolic beginning using the tag line from the "Blues Brothers" movie "On a mission from God!" The message was heard, the direction given and the leaders were off to make a difference. Or were they? Changing the culture of an organization is a more difficult charge than anyone imagined. As a leadership, team this sounded like a great plan until we all realized this meant we needed to change how we lead, manage, delegate, communicate, set goals, and monitor progress. We had a lot of hard work ahead of us!
The introduction of the "Must Haves" to our leadership team began at the September LDI. Thank you notes were introduced first. This was an entirely new concept for most of the leadership team. Thank you notes were a huge success both among staff and the leaders. In a 4-month timeframe, 10,960 thank you notes were sent from leaders across the system. The stories of appreciation from employees permeated throughout the organization.
Over the next 2 months over 68 team leaders and hundreds of team members were trained to be effective members of the service excellence teams. Skepticism still prevailed but we kept moving. The teams moved forward with their 90-day plans and the flywheel began to turn. Our pioneer service teams have had a huge impact on the organizational culture. Implementingthings such as standards of behavior, reward and recognition, team awards, employee forums, service recovery, newsletters, communication boards, white boards, patient communication tablets, key words, and ongoing measurement tools to illustrate what our patients are saying. The team leaders have a quarterly system horizontal conference call to share best practices and lessons learned. The service teams are just one example of the cultural transformation that is underway. We now have employee involvement and sharing between the facilities within the system, which historically was not commonplace. We are definitely proud of the service teams and their accomplishments as they continue to keep our flywheel turning.
At our January LDI, two new "Must Haves" were introduced: 1) Leadership Evaluation Tool and 2) Rounding for Outcomes. These new leadership expectations were tough. Our new evaluation tool was introduced which would evaluate leaders based on results and not just our job description and completed tasks. Results oriented leadership was definitely a new concept for the leadership team. Months have been spent reviewing goals versus tactics and aligning departmental goals to the organizational goals. We still struggle with the concept but as a team, we are doing much better relating actions to results.
Rounding for outcomes was also a very difficult leadership change for both the staff and the leaders. The majority of leaders thought they already were rounding. Yes, we all walk around talk to our staff and say hello to patients but were we really getting outcomes? Most came to the realization that we were not. Again, another leadership skill that needed refined. Once we began to see results and realized that when we round effectively, we actually get things done and progress began to be made across the organization. Things were getting fixed foremployees, expectations being set for patients and relationships being built with physicians.
The Provena Health LDI system sessions continue to be a critical component of our cultural change. The learning and development that our leaders have received over the last year in most cases exceeds what they have received in their entire career. The two-day sessions are attended by all leaders (supervisor and above) from across the system. The sessions offer consistent education, teambuilding, networking opportunities and the sharing of best practices in a fun and interactive way. Provena Health continues to be committed to developing great leaders throughout the organization.
Our Journey to Excellence at Provena Health is still in the infancy stages. We have a long winding road ahead of us but we are seeing some excellent results of our focus and commitment. Our patients are seeing a difference as indicated in our patient satisfaction results over the last year.
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Inpatient patient satisfaction: 34 percentile to the 78 percentile
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Emergency department: 44 percentile to the 66 percentile
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Home Health: 87 percentile to the 91 percentile
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Central Lab: 35 percentile to the 68 percentile
Employees from across the system are also seeing a difference as shown in our voluntary turnover statistics, which as a system are at 9.5 percent.
Thank you to the leaders, employees and physicians from across the system for your hard work and dedication to the mission of Provena Health. We are making a difference in the lives of those we serve.
Our work is not done, yet. We will continue to strive to make Provena Health a better place for our employees to work, physicians to practice medicine and patients to receive care!
Provena Health includes the following facilities: Provena Covenant Medical Center, Urbana; Provena Mercy Center, Aurora;Provena Saint Joseph Hospital, Elgin; Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center; Joliet; Provena St. Mary’s Hospital; Provena United Samaritans Medical Center, Danville; Provena Home Care, MedCentre Labs and Provena Senior Services.