Executive Notes

Patricia Tietjen, MD
VPMA Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital

Danbury and New Milford Hospital Medical Affairs Update

The Medical Staff Advisory Council has met twice since its inception in June. The first meeting addressed four major areas of concern that were expressed in the latest Medical Staff Satisfaction Survey: communication, IT, partnership and respect/recognition. Several key issues were addressed and tasks and assignments were made.

Information Technology
The overwhelming consensus was to address some key IT issues and the entire meeting in July was spent of IT issues. The group received an overview of the strategic IT plan and 12 action items were identified and being addressed at present. Some are as simple as having printers in areas that aid Medical Staff members in their work and others are much more complex such as achieving single sign on across all of the systems. Dr. Jimenez and Ms. DeMatteo will be giving frequent updates to the Medical Staff (including in this edition of DOC-Line) as we begin the journey to convert the three hospitals and the medical group to a single system- Cerner. The group also expressed concerns about the ability to access information through the HIE which all felt was not as robust as it should be.

Parking
Parking for the Medical Staff members has been an issue for some time. Beginning on September 8, 2015, the first level in the Rizzo (formerly Blue) Garage will be for Medical Staff members only. A gate has been placed on the fountain entrance to the garage. To access the gate you will need to use your Hospital ID or attach a magnetic sticker to your windshield. These stickers are available at the information desk in the Buck Lobby.

Multidisciplinary Rounding
In an attempt to improve patient care and communication with patients and staff members, the medical and surgical units in the hospital have instituted multidisciplinary team rounding on a daily basis. Each day, nurses, care managers, physical therapists, physicians, residents and associate staff members gather to discuss, as a team, each patient. The program is already showing some tangible results.

Hospital Recognition
Our Bariatric Surgery Program has received continued accreditation from the ACS. The Chest Pain Program has also received reaccreditation. These two programs are exceptional and show team work at its best- congratulations to all. Lastly, congratulations to everyone in helping Danbury Hospital attain its recognition in U.S. News and World Report.

Lewis Berman, MD
VPMA Norwalk Hospital

Norwalk Hospital Medical Affairs Update

Upcoming By-law vote, University of Vermont affiliation, Medical Staff Advisory Council notes, new Cerner progress notes, and the IRU closure.

• Our new, proposed Medical Staff Documents have been approved by the Medical Staff Bylaws Committee and the Medical Executive Committee (MEC). Because we couldn’t reach a quorum at the July Medical Staff meeting, we have called a special meeting of the Medical Staff for September 17, 2015 in Perkin Auditorium to discuss and approve the Bylaws. We will open email voting on September 1, 2015, so please, if you cannot make the special Bylaws meeting, email your vote for or against the new Bylaws to Betsy Purciello (Elizabeth.purciello@norwalkhealth.org) or me (lewis.berman@norwalkhealth.org).

• Norwalk Hospital, in partnership with Danbury Hospital, is on the path to become the WCHN branch campus of the University of Vermont College of Medicine. We already have UVM students rotating through several of our Departments, and this will increase and formalize over the next few years. Jonathan Fine, the Network Director of Medical Education, will be writing more about what it means to be a Branch Campus and opportunities for teaching in a future edition of DOC-Line.

• We conducted our second Medical Staff Advisory Council meeting on August 11. We shared the data and vision that led to Norwalk joining the Western Connecticut Health Network, the Network’s Primary Care strategy and our market share for a variety of different specialties. A productive discussion focused on how the Hospital can help foster communications between our physicians to help keep patients in our community and how Marketing and IT can also assist us in this goal. At the next meeting, IT and Marketing will be discussing their plans in more detail with the Medical Staff.

• On September 15 we will be entering the world of electronic progress notes for our hospitalized patients. Patients on pediatrics, medicine, and surgery will have their daily progress notes written through Cerner’s new physician workflows as electronic documents. Those physicians who are not part of this initial roll out should still dictate/Dragon their initial consult notes and can continue to write their follow up progress notes on paper. We believe that this important transition will help improve patient care by making sure that notes are legible and easily available.

• Due to the resignation of our Medical Director, we have temporarily closed our inpatient rehabilitation unit (IRU), and patients requiring this service are being transferred to other units both in and outside the Network. We are currently performing an in depth analysis to determine the future of this service at Norwalk Hospital.

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