Introduction
Bayhealth healthcare system, with hospitals located in Dover and Milford, is Delaware’s leading healthcare system dating back to the 1900s. The system’s leadership is committed to the mission of “strengthening the health of the community, one patient at a time.” Bayhealth provides a wide range of services, inpatient care, and a plethora of outpatient services at both facilities with access to 24-hour emergency departments. The ultimate longterm strategy is to leverage the case volume and upgrade surgeon satisfaction through cultural transformation of Perioperative Services througout the system.
Situation
Leadership at Bayhealth recognized the value of developing aligned relationships with surgeons while taking the necessary steps to create and install integrated, streamlined perioperative services. Surgical Services at both campuses were not organized to optimize patient care, volume and standardization of key daily operational processes. Solution
Bayhealth engaged with Surgical Directions to perform an assessment and implementation/transformation project conducted at both facilities. Bayhealth in collaboration with Surgical Directions scoped a phased timeline approach for the perioperative transformation over a nine (9) month engagement.
- Established a Surgical Services Executive Committee (SSEC) governing across the hospital system
- Streamlined processes and aligned both facilities, surgeons and surgical services staff members
- Anesthesia engaged in improving processes
- Held a Sterile Processing job fair to recruit staff to stabilize the department long-term
Results
- New processes improved turnover time (TOT) o Kent reduction of 20% o Sussex reduction of 10%
- Both facilities reached 92% first case on time starts (FCOTS)
“We increased our first case on time starts from 37% to sometimes 100%. Our turnover times decreased to 27 minutes as well. We have maintained great statistics for many months now.” – Bayhealth Staff member
“We reorganized our preadmission through post-operative processes which is improving our safety and efficiency. Surgical Directions offered tools that our team was able to modify to meet our patients’ needs.” – Bayhealth Staff member
“I was personally most impressed with the gentle guidance provided. Surgical Directions never insinuated that process changes had to occur in one particular way. They helped us collaborate together to keep all participants engaged in the process changes. They supported us through to the end.” – Bayhealth Staff member
