Exceeding our $3 million goal

From the Desk of Mark Newton

I am proud to announce that we exceeded our $3 million goal with a final amount of $3,912,000!

Employees whose annual performance reviews were completed in the past year will receive their lump sum retroactive payments on their April 16 paycheck, and pay increases will be calculated into paychecks moving forward. If you have not had your annual performance review, please speak to your manager.

I am truly appreciative of all of your hard work throughout the year to help us achieve this goal. It has been an incredible journey.

A year ago when we started this campaign, the economy was in very poor shape. Many companies were implementing layoffs and salary cuts, going bankrupt and even closing. Some Chicago hospitals were cutting staff by the hundreds.

At SCH, we were able to preserve jobs through implementing our salary freeze. And, we took it a step further by offering the opportunity to receive retroactive pay if we reached our financial goal — an incentive no other business to my knowledge offered its employees in those troubling times.

We were unsure of what this experiment would lead to.

But what we saw was amazing. In a time when morale could have easily shifted negatively, we instead saw the emergence of a new culture defined by teamwork and innovation.

You all pulled together and did your part to consider how to improve things for the better of our hospital and our patients. This brought forth dozens of new ideas for saving costs, growing business and improving efficiencies.

Just to name a few examples: Outpatient Rehabilitation Services decreased appointment cancellation rates by implementing a no-show/cancellation charge; Patient Food Services determined a way to save on milk costs; 4 South and 4 North placed “turn off the lights” reminders by every light switch and stopped printing lab results; and PACU and Pre-surgical Testing made concerted efforts to ensure they were ordering correct supply quantities and using them as efficiently as possible. Additionally, many of you put forth an extra focus on accurate documentation, turning in billing in a timely manner and working productively for the entire shift.

We learned that even these seemingly small changes made big impacts on our beaker level.

There were big changes, too. One of the most impactful efforts was a growth in patient volume — which underlines the hospital’s financial success — that came as a result of your advocacy for our hospital. You not only began using our services for your own health care needs, but you became vocal ambassadors for the hospital by encouraging your family, friends and neighbors to use our services and asking physicians to refer patients within our hospital.

We watched as all of these efforts — big and small — led to rising beaker levels throughout the year. It has now been proven that when we come together as a team and implement innovative ideas, we succeed.

That’s why it’s important that we don’t stop here. Achieving $3 million and receiving retroactive pay increases was only part of the reward; the rest lies in learning from our experience and not turning back.

I ask that you continue to take ownership of your role and stay engaged in our organization. Keep asking yourself, “How can I make this process better?” or “How can I improve the way we care for these patients?” Keep working together within your department and across the organization to implement positive change and address issues directly and quickly. And keep being advocates of our great hospital among your family, friends and neighbors.

We have seen the success this brings. Let’s not let it go.

Thank you in advance.

Mark

 Many of you also participated in our beaker photo contest to show how you were contributing to the goal. Please go to TheScienceofFeelingBetter.org to see the photo finalists and cast your vote for the winner.