CMO Notes

Matthew Miller, MD
Chief Medical Officer, WCHN

It’s clear that the key input you provided in our Medical Staff Satisfaction Survey related directly to your desire to provide better patient care; there were no trivial gripes or calls for frills and perks. You were telling us about your professional satisfaction. Perhaps ‘parking’ seems like an exception, but it’s an important quality of life issue for physicians stressed for time.

We’ve spent time understanding the data and that old standby communications runs through most of it. We need to confront the paradox of your desire for more communications with your already overloaded schedules.
Specifically:

1. You want to know more about plans and activities that affect you and your practice – how was a decision made? Why was a decision made?
2. You also want to be part of that decision process when appropriate; you want to be able to offer input.
3. You said “communicate more but less.” Communicate more succinctly and with appropriate filters---short, frequent messaging about important stuff but don’t tell us about gift shop sales or water shutdowns.
4. You want to be able to pick up a phone or compose and e-mail and get answers to your questions and help with your problems.

Parallel with communication was information technology. It impinges on your satisfaction not just in communications, but administratively and clinically. The next Advisory Council (see below) meetings will probably focus on the IT challenges and Eric has a piece below summarizing some of our plans.

We heard you. Medical Staff Advisory Councils at both the Norwalk and Danbury Campuses have been created and held their first meetings, chaired by the VPMAs and Presidents of the Hospitals respectively.

These new Advisory Councils (membership attached) will meet regularly to guide us and to let us know how we’re doing. Feel free to contact any of them.

On a more personal note, we have created a more structured “recognition” program for our Medical Staffs, with acknowledgement of exemplary performance or citizenship. The honorees are highlighted in the’ Kudos and Awards’ section of this edition of DOC-Line.

We’ll devote most of the next DOC-Line edition to Marketing plans and all that’s happening in “Population Health”. Through our PHO and in general, our world is rapidly becoming more value based and less volume based. Our increasing risk based contracts reflect that growing trend. Or shall I say, “that train has left the station” and payers, both CMS and commercial, are pushing hard. But that’s OK. There will be winners and losers in the new world but we can do this, and, in the end, together we become more in control of our patients’ lives and our own destinies.

Other items covered in this edition include a further comment on hospital taxes from John Murphy, Tom Koobatian’s comments on the new Arnhold Emergency department, a good look at Vision 2020, WCHN’s Strategic Plan, several noteworthy awards and a Vox Medicus editorial by Chuck Herrick that begins… “A man walks into a bar”

As always we welcome your feedback on DOC-Line.
Matt

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