That is exactly what the winner of this year’s Janet and Dick Davidson’s Extraordinary Patient- and Family-Centered Care Award accomplished. The Clatanoff Pavilion asked themselves, ”How can we increase family presence and participation?” They did not settle for status quo. This change required much collaboration—there were discussions and surveys with patients and families, staff involvement, multi-disciplinary education, and partnering, not only with patients and families but also with auxiliary, medical staff and support staff. February 1, 2011 marked a significant advance in patient- and family-centered care here at AAMC as the Clatanoff Pavilion rolled out their new visitation guidelines. With this new mindset, who could “visit” was determined by the one being visited—the patient.

June 1 was another significant day in the history of AAMC. It marked the launch of our new visiting policy across the entire hospital. AAMC is proud to welcome families 24 hours a day, as the patient and/or family wishes. Congratulations to all our staff and leadership for this extraordinary advance in patient- and family-centered care. And thank you for your support of this beautiful “renovation” of our visiting policy.

-Rita Linnenkamp, RN

Their team specializes in providing surgery to children and adults who have strabismus, a medical condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other. Without surgery, many children and adults face a lifetime of challenges.

The team they were working with this year consisted of general and plastic surgeons, primary medical doctors, podiatrists, dentists, and many fantastic nurses. As a whole, they performed 174 surgeries and attended to 1,384 patients in five days. In addition, a construction team traveling with them installed 65 stoves and water filters for families in the surrounding community.

Always Events /Always Experiences  refers to those aspects of the patient and family experience that should always occur during interaction with healthcare professionals and/or the healthcare delivery system. The grant program provides matching funds in support of innovative approaches to creating specific Always Events  that achieve measurable improvements in patient- and family-centered care.

On Tuesday, Dec. 7, the JC surveyors—a nurse, a physician, and an administrator—arrived, ready to take an in-depth look at our processes, practices and environments across all of AAMC’s service lines and locations.  

We strive to be perpetually ready for this unannounced survey and have many programs supporting our preparedness—ongoing patient tracers focusing on our improving practices relating to the National Patient Safety Goals,  environmental rounds, a safety liaison program, safety fairs, mock JC surveys and Joint Commission Readiness Councils.

And ready we were! Was all your hard work recognized by the JC? The short answer is—absolutely! They were extremely complimentary of the professionalism and competency of our staff. They recognized many of our practices as best practices, such as our medication management program, including pyxis profiling in the ED, clinical contract management, blood bank processes, vendor management and our joint program including post operative program with our patients.

Why is this so important? The JC evaluates a health care organization’s performance in areas that most affect patient health and safety. By achieving accreditation, we have demonstrated our commitment to provide safe, quality care to our patients.     

As with any survey, we have several opportunities to improve upon our practices to further enhance the quality and safe care we provide our patients.  These include several infection control practices and documentation improvement opportunities on our pain re-assessment and post operative/procedure notes. 

Where does this leave us today? We are currently still fully accredited by the Joint Commission and once we complete our follow up on our improvement plans, we will be confirmed for an addition three year accreditation cycle.

As always, we will continue to exercise our ongoing readiness activities!

As many of us know, there is a unique kind of excitement one feels when they hear that the JC will be visiting their unit. And a special kind of satisfaction that comes with a successfully completed survey.

-Anastasia Brown, R.N., C.P.H.Q.

Health Tours for Youth students confirm Endoscopy is “really cool”

That’s what Annapolis Middle school students had to say about seeing the digestive and pulmonary systems up close during their time spent on the Endoscopy Suite last week.

AAMC’s Health Tours for Youth, a program coordinated by Saisa Neel, RN, brings middle schoolers to the hospital once a month. They learn about different health topics and are encouraged to consider health care as a career field.

These 15 students, along with their chaperones, met with Endoscopy team members Linda Tabisz, RN, Steve Yokum, RN, Ana Twitty, Endo Tech, Kim King, RN, and Nico Manuncia, RN. Keith Goulet, MD spoke with the students about the pulmonary system, bringing in subjects like smoking, asthma and peer pressure. Barry Cukor, MD wowed the students with enthusiastic stories and hands-on demonstrations. 

 A Pentax representative brought in a see-through scope (which amazed the students as well as the staff) and gave an informative lecture on the digestive system, complete with posters and handouts.

The students enjoyed the visit and asked many thoughtful questions. Each student was given a folder with endoscopy-themed puzzles and age-appropriate resource material.

For more information about the Endoscopy Suite and what we do, please call x1544.