Folks,
New job. New baby. New home. New town. Thank goodness same wife! Speaking of, my family is here in Del Rio, and after a long summer of commuting between Arlington, San Antonio and Del Rio it’s great to have everyone under one roof. I hope as summer winds down that you and your family are doing well and have found something to do that involves shade, A/C or water. Man, it’s hot and I’m used to this all my life.
There has been no slowdown at VVRMC this summer. We have wrapped up a July that for many of us felt like a winter month. Very, very busy. July is the first month of our budget year so it’s nice to get off to a good start. Our accounting office as we speak is working to close the books so we do not yet know how we did financially, but hopefully are in good shape out of the gate. We did make our budget for 2011! June was the last month for that, and we did great that last month of the old budget yet. So, great news in that we will be paying out on our VIPPS bonus program nearly to the full effect later this Fall. I am really excited about that. It is great to be part of a hospital that shares the wealth so that when we “ring all the bells” everyone gets to celebrate. The only metric for 2011 that we fell short on was Patient Satisfaction. So it comes as no surprise that that continues to be our focus, not just because it’s one of our bonus metrics but because we owe it to our community to make sure when they come here for service they are well taken care of all of the time. ED scores are on the way up. Med/Surg scores right now are about as good as they can get! We are making real progress, and it’s important to me that you are aware of that, know how we are measured and do everything you can to help the cause. We will soon be adding formal metrics in our outpatient areas, including imaging and same day surgery. I think these are two of our shining areas from a service standpoint (that’s the feedback I get in talking to folks in the community) so I’m anxious to formally measure our results here as well.
I mentioned two weeks ago in regards to the formation of a revamped Employee Advisory Group. We’ve kicked the tires some more on that, and I think we will be able to get things underway in September. If you are service-oriented, creative, dependable, bring lots of energy to the table and really care about the overall well-being of your colleagues and our hospital, you are the type of person that would be an excellent fit for this group. Please keep us in mind. One of the first projects that I’d like to task the EAG with is developing a robust wellness program for our team. I have some ideas and know there are other good ones out there. I have been talking to some of you as part of this in regards to trying to find some space on campus to have a 24/7 secure work out facility for our staff free of charge. I think we can pull that off and am very supportive of doing something like this. I know that Gayla’s team has been gracious to let us use their equipment in the PT area, but it’s not open all the time and we have to share it with our patients and their families. I hope this will create easy access to health equipment and be something else if you’ve been thinking about exercising to get you over the hump!
We start this month on our campus renovation project. Look for improvements first near the lobby area. Know we will be moving throughout the first floor this calendar year with more improvements to come as the funds become available!
Lastly, to our crew at the Val Verde Health Clinic (week-end/after hours clinic) congrats on your busiest weekend so far this past one. We saw 54 patients and the reviews have been great—easy to get in and out, great service, and great care. We need the word to continue to spread on this one that it’s there. Now open still Friday through Sunday, although we are working to expand the hours. We need to push the weekend traffic to about 120 visits…so in just a few months with only now beginning to market we are already a third of the way there! Great job!
Keep the Spirit,
Marc