Operational Excellence

This will be done through the following strategies:

Workforce Optimization

• Aligned with our goal of seamless, right patient, right care, right time care delivery, our focus on optimizing our workforce means striving to have the right people doing the right things at the right time. Identifying proper staffing levels, implementing wellness programs, optimizing the use of our casual pool, etc., will enable us to improve quality and effectiveness at work for staff, achieve our desired care outcomes, and ensure that we achieve operational excellence.

Patient Flow & Access

• Implementing flow strategies to ensure patient and resident access to the most appropriate level of care is what our flow work is all about. Looking at three overarching areas of the patient experience — admission, daily activity, and transition to the community — implementing Providence’s Flow Strategy is a team effort that spans several program areas, employs a number of tools and relies on robust data analysis to make it all make sense. Working together on discharge planning, bed meetings, congestion and surge protocols, repatriation, identifying alternate levels of care, etc., is helping us to move the dial on how our patients and residents access appropriate care in a timely way, while connecting up to our organization’s critical area of focus on Operational Excellence and delivering on the priorities outlined in our Providence Plan.  

Safety Learning System in Collaboration with Mayo Clinic

•  No one should ever suffer or die as a result of process of care or system failures. This is the guiding principle used by the Mayo Clinic in their Mortality Review system – a complementary approach to the traditional concept of Morbidity and Mortality reviews.

  Over the next year, Providence has been given the incredible opportunity to enter into a collaborative with Mayo to learn from their work.  In addition to the current system of peer review, we have now introduced  the Safety Learning System, which is a systems review designed to incorporate input from all disciplines. In deference to the expertise of our clinicians, every case is reviewed by a practicing nurse and physician with the goal of identifying “opportunities for improvement.” All findings are recorded in a central registry and then monthly multidisciplinary, multi-specialty sessions are used to build consensus regarding our findings. The reviews are not about prevent-ability or causality; rather, the lens is really just about asking, would you have wanted your loved one to receive the same care?

  Over the next year, we will start to share the learnings from this work and use the findings to improve systems of care delivery, build effective teams, strengthen our culture of safety and, most importantly, save lives.