West Valley Medical Center - February 06, 2019

Betsy Hunsicker
CEO

Almost one year ago, we asked for your opinions about West Valley as a place to practice medicine. We were grateful and pleased with the feedback you provided. Overall, your input was very positive, particularly in the areas of nursing care, place to practice, administration, patient safety and quality of care.

We continue our efforts in providing skilled and compassionate team members to care for your patients. Over the last year, we reduced nursing turnover to less than 10%, and our first year nursing turnover was at 0%. Specifically, we are proud to report that our Med/Surg unit had 0% turnover in 2018! Additionally, employee engagement for nursing staff increased by 9% up to 89% total, which put us at #4 out of approximately 180 HCA hospitals. West Valley’s overall engagement improved to 84%, which put us highest in the Mountain Division and in the top 10% of the enterprise.

Our focus on quality and safety remains paramount. We instituted several new initiatives over the past year, including a daily safety huddle and a weekly meeting with the entire leadership team to review core measure fallouts, medication safety, process issues, patient engagement, quality improvement plans. In our weekly quality meeting we work together to identify solutions to apply across the entire organization. As a result of our efforts, we earned our 8th and 9th consecutive Leapfrog “A” Patient Safety Scores, our 2nd Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence score (which puts us in the top 10% of all hospitals across the country for safety), and we were in the top three for clinical excellence within HCA for all of 2018.

Our patients’ perception of their care measured through our Press-Ganey survey is at all-time highs. Our inpatient care score ended 2018 in the 94th percentile for the 2800 hospitals in the Press-Ganey database. Our ED made improvements with significant reductions in wait times and length of stay. At the same time, patients’ ratings of their experiences in the ED increased significantly over the year reaching the top quartile of the Press-Ganey database by the end of 2018.

Focus on communication with our medical staff continues to be a top priority. Through our quarterly newsletter, quarterly business meetings, regular check-ins, and service line meetings we make every effort to keep you updated and seek your input on strategic and operational decisions.

Because of the influential feedback you provide, we are moving our survey frequency to annual. The survey will be shorter sent to a sample of providers and it will be available online only. On March 1, you will receive an email with a link to the survey – this link will automatically enter your NPI so you won’t have to hunt for that! Our goal is to reach 90% participation by March 15, and if we hit that goal, we will provide a hospital-wide celebration! Thank you in advance for your participation.

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