EndoscopyTeam Shares Award

Endoscopy Team Shares Award

Munson Medical Center Endoscopy Team of Traverse City, Mich., received its hospital’s “Quality Achiever of the Month” award for January 2005. The award is handed down periodically to a person or persons showing exemplary initiatives that have positively impacted the quality of care in the hospital.

In the spring of 2004, the anticipated opening of a new ambulatory surgery center (ASC) impacted the medical procedure room endoscopy department more than any other area of the hospital. The team, however, maintained services without interruption even though patient volumes increased and staffing decreased by nine team members as the new ASC was getting ready to open. Continued quality improvement processes challenged this team to the extreme. The opening of the ASC required a restructuring of the entire endoscopy department to accommodate the shift in patients to the ASC. As the restructuring was in progress, the endoscopy team stepped up to the plate and worked extra shifts to fill in the gaps in the schedule, took more on-call and worked more overtime than ever.

Jan Kyff, RN, manager of the department, had the responsibility of restructuring the block times for the physicians as well as determining new nursing needs to go with the new block times. Kyff then presented the plan to the nursing staff and problem-solving began as a team. The team proposed the implementation of a weekend cadre. This required two nurses to work a set shift both Saturday and Sunday with additional nurses covering the on-call hours in the evening. The plan was justified after considering the amount of overtime that was being paid on the weekends, and the implementation started Jan. 1, 2005. Two team members chose to work only weekends and the rest of the team rotated taking the evening on-call hours. Overtime has virtually been eliminated on the weekends.

The endoscopy nurses were also seeing a large increase in overtime during weekdays, working late into the evenings. They proposed two salaried on-call positions that would require two nurses to be on call from 3 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. with the expectation to work on an as-needed basis. This plan was also justified and implemented on Jan. 1, 2005.

The Munson Medical Center endoscopy team continued to focus on quality patient care while implementing multiple changes associated with the opening of the new ASC. As a result of their hard work and efforts, the patient satisfaction levels remained constant at greater than 90 percent, and the 2004 nurse satisfaction levels were the highest in the hospital. Inpatients and outpatients alike consistently received high-quality care by the team, which has remained flexible and team-focused throughout this time of dramatic change.

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