Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center drives accountability through performance management
The senior management team at Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center (JARMC), an acute care hospital in Meridian, Mississippi, believes strongly that quality of care can be affected by the quality of employee accountability. To encourage accountability, they implemented an innovative program, with the support of their Board of Directors, to educate managers. And to ensure it became ingrained in process and hospital culture, senior management decided that they needed to excel in managing employee performance, competency, and learning. They chose HealthcareSource Performance Manager™ to accomplish this.
An opportunity to improve accountability
In their internal evaluation of opportunities to improve accountability, JARMC identified the appraisal process as a good opportunity for change. They found that the appraisals could be improved through consistent re-evaluation and that managers could better evaluate their employees through additional education. They tied this to the initiative — if employees and managers were clear on expectations and performance, a culture of accountability would emerge.
Accountability through automation
“We started by looking at five vendors, and short-listed it to two,” said Dusty Culpepper, Assistant Director of HR. “We selected HealthcareSource Performance Manager because we really liked its simplicity. It was not hard to maneuver through, especially on the employee end. You click on it and bam — there it is. We also really liked the people from HealthcareSource. In fact, we saw the results of a poll through our VHA Gulf States Network regarding HealthcareSource — and people raved about their customer service. As a result, we had a really good feeling about them.”
A team based implementation process
To ensure success, JARMC took a team approach to the software deployment and training. A core team was formed with representatives from the HR, Nursing, Performance Improvement and Education Departments, and worked closely on all aspects of the deployment. “This approach worked great. Getting Nursing on board was critical to success, and we got buy-in because we had a well-respected nurse manager on the core team who really took ownership. We had a good team with a positive attitude, and this really radiated through the hospital,” said Culpepper.“A lot of this had to do with the HealthcareSource implementation team, who were fantastic. We are all about relationships, and I want to know that I can pick up the phone and get someone. They have been very responsive, and if I have an issue, I know they will take care of it.”
JARMC piloted the system with four groups — two clinical, two non-clinical. They also targeted both computer savvy and less computer savvy departments and managers to uncover best practices and potential issues early. To emphasize that accountability is important at all levels, department vice presidents participated in the system orientation with their department managers.
The results
JARMC has rolled out the performance appraisal process with great results. “We get reports to see who is late, and the system can send email reminders to employees and managers. I work with a VP who is a pen and paper guy, and he likes it,’’ remarked Culpepper. Jason Cain, RN, Nurse Manager on the core deployment team, added, “Managers are required to provide feedback to employees, which really drives clear expectation and better communications. We’ve also used it as an opportunity to get better and more consistent job descriptions. It has really improved the whole process tremendously.” Prior to the use of Performance Manager, JARMC had a half FTE whose sole function was to manage the follow-up. As a result of the software, this person’s responsibilities have been changed.
Though JARMC initially sought to address the performance appraisal process, they expanded the project to include the tracking of learning and competency. “It’s so user-friendly for competency and learning. For example, a few weeks ago there was a bomb threat made to a neighboring institution, and within ten minutes we sent out the bomb training checklist and policy to every employee to validate competency on it. This would have been nearly impossible before,” said Culpepper. They are using the system for learning opportunity inservices, online training, feedback, and goals and will soon roll out competency checklists tailored to specific clinical and non-clinical areas. Culpepper concluded, “We love it. It has not only helped us institutionalize our accountability initiative, but it’s helped us save time and work more efficiently.”
