Part 3: Beaumont Health strategic plan series

March 22, 2016

Part 3: Beaumont Health strategic plan series

Click these stories Giant colon makes appearance Colorectal cancer takes the stage at three Beaumont Health p. 2 hospitals iPads in the OR Doctors work together to buy iPads for peds patients

Clinical alignment strategy presents many opportunities to improve patient care

H

ow does an eight hospital health system implement a new and innovative model of front line care and develop a clinical program structure to drive greater efficiency and effectiveness?

“Thankfully, we have a strong, competent team of leaders who are sharing their time and talent, their experience and passion for health care, and working together to help us achieve our strategic objectives for clinical alignment,” said David Wood, M.D., chief medical officer, Beaumont Health.

p. 3

Employee discounts On the market to buy? Check out the Employee Discount Directory before you sign p. 4 the deal Spotlight on Krista Bobo “My job as a health educator isn’t about placing strict protocols and high expectations on people. It’s about fitting health into their everyday life.” p. 7

Leaders and physicians from Beaumont Health Physician Partners, which oversees medical administrative business “We want to ensure we functions such as credentialing, physician wellness, and physician are practicing high standards contracting for our independent physicians, and the Beaumont of evidence-based medicine, Medical Group that is comprised of while aligning clinical care employed physicians and practices, have collaborated to develop a delivery to achieve favorable thoughtful and detailed work plan to support this strategic imperative. outcomes and extraordinary

patient care.” “No matter the size or location of a hospital, to achieve clinical alignment we can all learn best practices from our colleagues,” said Dr. Wood. “Through this imperative, it’s important to remember the delivery of high quality medical care requires close collaboration between physicians, nurses and administration. We want to ensure we are practicing high standards of evidencebased medicine, while aligning clinical care delivery to achieve favorable outcomes and extraordinary patient care.” The strategies to support the clinical alignment strategic imperative include a number of key team members and initiatives. For example, to improve care quality, access and coordination, Laura Glenn, senior vice president and executive director, Beaumont Physician Partners, and Terry See, Clinical alignment, continued on p. 2

2

Giant colon makes the rounds, spreading colon cancer awareness A giant , inflatable colon was displayed at the Dearborn, Royal Oak and Troy hospitals in March to bring awareness to colorectal cancer. Explained Harry Wasvary, M.D., medical director, Colorectal Multidisciplinary Tumor Clinic, Beaumont, Royal Oak, “The giant colon is unique. It grabs your attention. How often can people walk through a 32-foot long and 20-foot wide, inflatable colon complete with polyps? These are small growths or tumors within the colon that can enlarge and develop into colon cancers.” At right, Haley Henson, Surgical Administration, Beaumont, Dearborn, took the opportunity to walk through the colon and even captured the moment forever.

Clinical alignment Continued from front page Kowalenko, M.D., president, Beaumont Medical Group, are working to integrate the three legacy employed medical groups into one unified group. “It’s truly a team effort,” said Laura. “BMG has a fantastic group of physician executives and team members who are helping us get to our end goal of making the integration of our new medical group a success.” Similarly, Subra Sripada, executive vice president and chief transformation and information officer and Karie Lyon, vice president of Enterprise Integration, Information Technology, are leading the implementation of one electronic health record implementation across Beaumont Health – connecting the hospitals, employed practices and ambulatory offices. Les Rocher, M.D., senior vice president, chief academic and clinical officer, and Carolyn Wilson, executive vice president and chief operating officer, are also identifying a curriculum of Continuing Medical Education courses on value-based care. Peggy Nowak, M.D., medical staff president, Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, and David Walters, D.O., senior vice president, Beaumont Health Physician Partners, are leading efforts to introduce a professional wellness program for physicians.

“The Physician Wellness Program will address the growing needs of physicians coping with stress, depression, addiction and other emotional and behavioral issues,” said Dr. Nowak. “To be able to provide the very best care to patients, it’s important we provide physicians the resources they need to maintain good physical and behavioral health.” Other clinical alignment initiatives supporting new and innovative models of front line care include a pilot program to be launched later this year to improve transitions of care from inpatient to outpatient or community-based, and new processes to reduce duplicate care and patient readmissions. These initiatives require Beaumont Health team members to not only develop new processes, but also build upon best practices that are already in place at our founding organizations. Dr. Wood explains one way to do this is through the further development of the Clinical Care Programs structure, which brings various team members in specialties from across Beaumont Health together to identify best practices at the founding organizations and to carry them across Beaumont Health.

3

The gift of less anxiety

Physicians chip in to purchase iPads for young patients in pre-surgery

O

ne of the greatest challenges in pediatric anesthesia is providing preoperative relief for children’s anxiety. Medical research has compared the effects of giving children preoperative sedatives with allowing parents to be present when kids’ anesthesia begins. Both of those measures can be effective. Now, some physicians at Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills have made it possible for kids, and even some adult patients, to distract their attention away from anxious thoughts by playing games and doing activities on iPads. “We wanted to give a desirable distraction to the pediatric patients we serve,” said Beaumont, Farmington Hills anesthesiologist Aaron Wood, D.O. “Letting kids play fun and interactive games on iPads gives them a great distraction and is an appropriate alternative to using sedatives to reduce anxiety.”

Karlie Smigielski, 10, plays a game on an iPad game right up until the anesthesia mask is placed over her face. Her anesthesiologist Aaron Lewis, M.D., at right, contributed to the purchase of six iPads. They are used to reduce pediatric patients’ anxiety in Pre-Op at Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills.

Dr. Wood turned into a fundraiser and went to his fellow anesthesiologists, as well as ear, nose and throat surgeons David Seel, D.O., and Shant Korkigian, D.O., to raise enough money to purchase six iPads. “Our main goal was to help calm and distract the kids who come in to have their tonsils and adenoids removed,” Dr. Wood said. “But the iPads were so successful as a distraction, that we now offer an iPad to all preoperative pediatric patients, as well as to adult patients who might have an extended stay in Pre-Op or Post-Op.” When the devices first appeared in Pre-Op, an anesthesiologist would hand out an iPad to his or her pediatric patients. Soon though, the surgical registration clerk will give an iPad to kids, so patients will obtain the device within minutes of arriving at the hospital. “When we see our pediatric patients having a good time using these iPads, my fellow physicians, as well as the kids’ parents and the PreOp staff, feel really energized!” said Dr. Wood. “Personally seeing a child’s positive reaction is very rewarding, not only because it allays the child’s anxiety, but it reminds me of my colleagues’ dedication and compassion to our patients and to our hospital.” Mackenzie Smigielski, 14, had her tonsils and adenoids removed right after younger sister Karlie’s surgery. Mackenzie is hanging out in Pre-Op with her anesthesiologist Aaron Lewis, M.D., left, and her ear, nose and throat surgeon David Seel. D.O. They were part of the group of physicians at Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills who pooled their money to purchase iPads for pediatric patients to use to distract themselves from preop jitters.

4

Employee Services assembles a directory of discounts for you What makes it cool to work for a large organization? How about having access to hundreds of discounts on goods and services? Before you buy anything, check the Employee Discount Directory on the Beaumont Health intranet by clicking on the Departments/Services pulldown menu and selecting Human Resources. “Discount opportunities are found in 31 categories, beginning with Apartment Rentals and ending with Travel,” said Kimberley Anderson, corporate director, Employee Services, Beaumont Health. “We maintain the Beaumont Health Employee Discount Directory. I encourage all employees to get to know the great discounts they have access to simply by working for Beaumont Health. It’s a great perk!” For more information, contact Amy Bowes or Kim Anderson.

Three CEMTech locations to serve your car repair needs Call for an appointment at the repair center closest to your workplace! Southfield 25300 W. Eight Mile Road 248-304-6076 Taylor 26150 Northline Road 734-947-9126 Troy 950 West Maple Road 248-269-0662

Additionally, employees can get car repairs at a nice discount. Most of us own at least one personal vehicle and maintaining it is simply a fact of life. Before calling your usual

For the first time

garage or dealership, make your first call to CEMTech, which offers a valuable employee discount. There is real money to be saved since parts are discounted 10 percent and the charge for labor is only $60 per hour. Financing is available on purchases of at least $199. CEMTech is part of Beaumont Health. It’s a licensed automotive repair facility, operated by one of Beaumont’s affiliates, Community Emergency Medical Services. CEMTech technicians are certified by the National Institute for Service Excellence, state certified or both. Its facilities have computerized diagnostics. Shuttle service to and from your workplace is included. Appointments are necessary. In addition to all the normal vehicle repair services, CEMTech also does glass repair and has a towing service.

Joint conference brings together all eight hospitals to learn best practice standards More than 35 Beaumont Health team members from all eight hospitals gathered for two days last month at the PNC building or at Lundy Corporate Services in Dearborn to learn about catheter best practices. This was the first joint conference of this type for Beaumont Health. “We came together for the seminar because we all had different catheters and vendors because of the merger. We also had different definitions of what is a peripherally central inserted catheter opposed to a noncentral inserted catheter,” explained Robyn Thomas, manager, External Quality Measures. “We decided to bring in a national expert to go over the national guidelines, best practice standards, so we could come back together after the seminar to decide what we wanted our corporate definitions to be.”

5

Clinical Care Program Feature: Imaging How does an eight hospital health system with multiple imaging centers provide an extraordinary patient experience, offer imaging tests competively priced for consumers, with the ability to share images by a simple click of a button? “It takes a lot of collaboration with many people in many areas across the system,” said Duane Mezwa, M.D., chief, Radiology Services for Beaumont hospitals in Grosse Pointe, Royal Oak and Troy. Working closely with Information Technology, Revenue Cycle Operations and the Imaging and Radiology departments across the three founding organizations, the Imaging Clinical Care Program identified objectives to help accomplish these tasks.

Clinical care program teams are important to Beaumont Health and are key in moving the organization forward to becoming one. Knowing how the organization is aligning clinical care practices to achieve favorable outcomes and extraordinary patient care affects everyone with a Beaumont Health badge. The Imaging clinical care program will establish and implement plans for introducing a picture archiving and communication system, commonly referred to as PACS, across Beaumont Health. The team is also working on strategies to improve patient access through scheduling, developing protocols for standardizing the

preauthorization process, as well as introducing a common price estimator to share with consumers. “Besides implementing a common PACS across Beaumont Health, the Imaging CCP team will work on a standardized Voice Recognition system concurrent with the PACS implementation,” said Michael Schwartz, M.D., Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills The single, most important priority is the implementation of PACS. “We expect to implement a single PACS system across all Beaumont Health by early 2017,” said Donald Conn, M.D., Beaumont Hospital, Dearborn.

New mom will always remember her postpartum nurse These comments were excerpted from a patient’s nomination of her nurse for the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses. This nurse went on to receive this award at Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills. Denise Lester, RN, was my nurse on the Postpartum unit at Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills for a couple of night shifts after the birth of my son Keaton on Oct. 17. She was warm, friendly, prompt and thorough in her care. She also is a very knowledgeable nurse. She came hourly to check on me. Denise made sure I was comfortable in bed for breast-feeding, had clean linens, had what I needed for hygiene, pain medications, water for myself and my husband, bedding for my husband and anything else I needed. Denise spent time talking with me about my care, but also on a personal level, which meant so much to me. Keaton needed phototherapy for jaundice and would not sleep under the Bili lights, so I was not getting any sleep. One night when Denise was able due to her patient census, she took my son out of the room and provided care for him

under the lights in between feedings so I could get some sleep. It was crucial I get a few hours of rest, and she knew that was important for my well-being as well as my son’s. She made my care not about just passing medications, assessing pain and vital signs, but rather thinking of my whole situation and how my well-being Denise Lester, RN affected my pain level, ability to feed and care for my son by myself, but most of all, to enjoy him. Denise is a wonderful nurse and I will never forget her face and her voice; it was calming and comforting when I felt like I was struggling. I am thankful for an amazing postpartum experience that, with its complications for Keaton and me, was made less difficult with Denise as my caregiver. She truly advocated for me as a patient. I will always remember her. Sincerely,

Andrea L. North

6

NIH grant enables researchers to help improve outcomes for high-risk babies “Isn’t this beautiful?” Dr. Luis Goncalves said with admiration. The co-medical director of Fetal Imaging and pediatric radiologist at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, was gesturing to a detailed intrauterine ultrasound, depicting the intricate network of vessels, providing blood flow to the placenta. “It’s beautiful, indeed,” agreed Yuxiang Zhou, medical physicist, Diagnostic Radiology, Beaumont, Royal Oak. The pair were recently awarded a $1.7 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health to investigate fetal growth restriction, which leads to low-birth-weight babies. The grant is part of a $4.4 million NIH grant awarded to a partnership with the University of South Florida and Beaumont’s Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Diagnostic Radiology and Molecular Imaging.

Luis Goncalves, M.D., and Yuxiang Zhou were awarded a National Institutes of Health grant to study conditions that lead to low-birth-weight babies.

Research will focus on fetuses not growing as expected. Although about 10 percent of fetuses measure smaller than expected for gestational age, only about 50 percent of these are affected by intrauterine growth restriction. Babies who experience intrauterine growth restriction due to placental abnormalities are at increased risk of dying in the womb or after birth. Survivors may experience prolonged hospitalization and are also at increased risk of later neurological complications. Even those babies who do well initially are at increased, long-term risk of obesity, diabetes and hypertension. The end goal is to discover imaging signs which correlate with placental  dysfunction and may identify babies at highest risk for growth restriction early on, leading to the development of prevention and/or early treatment strategies. Blood and placental tissue will be collected to look for biomarkers, substances in blood and tissue that may be present in conjunction with disease. “We hope our research can lead to the development of imaging tests that can help us understand what is happening to the placentas of these fetuses early in gestation – even before growth restriction develops,” Dr. Goncalves said.

The research team at Beaumont is currently seeking 200 women in the first trimester of pregnancy to participate in the study. Researchers will use newer technology, known as “Superb Microvascular Imaging,” to capture three detailed images of placental perfusion by ultrasound throughout each woman’s pregnancy. Women whose pregnancies are complicated by fetal growth restriction will also have an MRI of the placenta during their third trimester. These images will be used by researchers to compare blood flow oxygenations between placentas of appropriately progressing and growth restricted babies.   “For those with established intrauterine growth restriction, our objective is to find out if evaluation of placental oxygenation by MRI will help identify with greater precision those placentas that are not capable of supporting the fetus,” Dr. Goncalves said.  Separating babies who are small, but normal, from those who are truly growth restricted, then determining how to best manage them, in terms of surveillance and timing of delivery, are the key challenges, Yuxiang said. Only 18 to 20 percent of research teams who apply for NIH grants receive an award. Interested parties may contact research coordinator Evie Russell, RN, at 248-898-5388 or Dr. Goncalves at 248-898-2068.

K

rista Bobo’s job is becoming commonplace these days in many corporations. She supports workplace wellness; her title is senior health education specialist. What she really wants you to know: your health is her job. If you’re someone who has wanted to work on healthier lifestyle habits but feel there is no way to fit it into your busy schedule, you’re in luck. Through Bwell, the employee wellness program, Krista focuses on keeping the team in top form. “My goal is to support you, so you will be able to complete your job responsibilities,” said Krista. Krista’s path to wellness education began in 2002 as a cardiac rehabilitation intern at Beaumont Hospital, Dearborn. After a brief stint in Community Health teaching diabetes education, she took a full-time cardiac rehabilitation job at Beaumont Hospital, Wayne. But it was in 2005, when she took a job in cardiology research and became part of the Health Hearts for Women study, which fueled her passion for health education. Krista’s aha moment came when she realized that many of these women were not even aware of their health status. “My job as a health educator isn’t about placing strict protocols and high expectations on people. It’s about fitting health into their everyday life,” she said. “It’s about helping them from a place where they are at now and letting them know they are supported.” In light of Beaumont’s wellness integration, opportunities to improve employee health are abundant and continue to grow behind the scenes. Putting all the options under one umbrella so systemwide employee wellness makes sense is also Krista’s job. “We’ve had fun putting together some fun events during National Nutrition Month,” said Krista. “We’re also working on some special events to promote in May during National Employee Health and Fitness Month, such as the annual PokerWalk and perhaps a Fitbit subsidy.” “We have a great group of people at the ready to make wellness work for you,” said Krista. “The options are endless: onsite education, coaching, group fitness and even local wellness ambassadors at your site. Check out our site, we can come up with a plan that works for you.”

EDITORIAL TEAM

Lynn Anderson, Julie Antioch, Rebecca Calappi, Beth Montalvo, Scott Roush, Philip Sherman and Scott Spielman Photographers Elizabeth DeBeliso, Mark Nuytten and Tony Simler We welcome comments, feedback, letters to the editor and story ideas. Just email [email protected] and we’ll get back to you.