MonticelloLive

MonticelloLive is proud to welcome a new weekly feature, DMH Newsletter, featuring a message and/or other information from Hospital Administrator Michael Layfield to employees and friends of the organization.

***********************

CEO Cup of Fresh Brew, by Michael Layfield, CEOWe Can Make A Difference Through A Positive Attitude

While reviewing promotional events and appreciation weeks for the month of October we found that “Positive Attitude Day,” and “Make a Difference Day” are celebrated during October. I think it is just plain old common sense that “we can make a difference in the care of our patients though a positive attitude.”

A positive attitude helps to cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. A positive attitude brings optimism into your life, and makes it easier to avoid worry and negative thinking. If you adopt it as a way of life, it will bring constructed changes into your life and make you happier, brighter, and more successful. With a positive attitude you see the brighter side of life, become optimistic and expect the best. It is certainly a state of mind that is well worth developing and strengthening.

Be very selective of the music, news, information, and the people that you surround yourself with and listen to. Garbage in, equals garbage out!

Negative attitudes say that you cannot achieve success, and positive attitudes say you can achieve success. Negative attitudes bring about more negative attitudes. Negative people look for negative people, and negative attitudes and thoughts love misery. If you are miserable, your physical and well- being suffers.

It’s not a mystery as to what patients and physicians want when they come through our hospital. They want to feel safe. They want the best quality care. They want to be treated with respect and kindness; and, above all, they want a positive caring “attitude” and service delivered with compassion.

When the doors of our hospital open each day to our patients, our patients should feel a “positive attitude” coming from each of our employees. When our patients reach out to us, they want us to be open and valuable to them when they say, “I’m sick,” “I feel bad,” “I am scared,” or “I need some additional information.” A “positive attitude” will give them service right away; a “negative attitude” will give them excuses. Clever patients know when no one cares; there is no quality, and when there is a “negative attitude” in many of the hospitals that they walk into across Arkansas. I am convinced that each of our employees know that they can make a difference by delivering the caring spirit and positive attitude to each of the patients that come into Drew Memorial Hospital.

This week we have had many positive things going on. In the finance meeting we discussed that the hospital had a gain of $149,494 in September and a YTD gain of $110,399. One issue that we are working on is Home Health where we had a gain of $135,244 YTD, and Personal Care had a loss of $229,596 or a combined loss of $94,352. We have a phased plan to eliminate our loss in Personal Care. We will discontinue Personal Care (personal care includes homemaker and meals) in all counties outside of Drew County. If we cannot find a way to make Personal Care profitable by doing business only in Drew County, we will end this service line by December 1st. If we end this service line, we will make sure that the services of providing meals and homemaker personal care are made available through other agencies to the people and the patients both inside and outside Drew County. With the savings that we will ultimately derive from ending this service line, we will be able to put money back into other operations needs such as salaries, equipment, and supplies. If there are any employee reductions, our HR department will assist in finding other work opportunities if possible.

We received approval to adopt a new dress code policy that will enhance the professional look of all our employees. We have distributed a new organizational chart. We have started a revenue cycle task force. The revenue cycle task force focuses on all aspects of not only delivering care to our patients, but making sure that all the care delivered is charged for appropriately through appropriate upfront cash collections, coding the medical record, getting the bill out to the appropriate third party in a timely manner and final collection of the bill, which puts money and cash in the bank to pay for our operations.

We agreed that we will place a dry erase board and clock in each of the patient rooms. The dry erase boards will let the patient know what the day and month are and what their daily activities and plans for them will be during their hospital stay. In addition, the patient will know who their nurse and physician are.

We are continuing to analyze and focus on improving our emergency room staffing with Dr. Williams and bringing in additional OB coverage for Dr. Reinhart when he is away. We are also analyzing options for expediting the cost for improving the HVAC, roof, and repair of the 300 and 400 patient wings and rooms.

These are just some of the things that are going on in our hospital this week, and I look forward working with each and every one of you to continue to improve safe quality care for our patients, delivering service with a positive attitude, improving employee satisfaction by all of us working together as a team, and looking for and implementing new operational policies and procedures to improve the financial health of our hospital.

I leave you with this thought: The best exercise for the human heart is to reach down and pick one up who needs our help and delivering that help with care, compassion, and a positive attitude.: