Dear Colleagues,
When someone comes to one of our hospitals in need of urgent medical care, what do they remember about the experience?
What I suspect stays with them is the care they receive from the physicians, nurses and frontline health care professionals they encounter first in the Emergency Department (ED) and then on our hospital units.
On those units, our physician hospitalists play the leading role in that experience.
Keeping Care Teams Connected
At MU Health Care, we employ more than 50 hospitalists, 17 of whom are caring for patients on a given day. Once a patient is admitted, hospitalists lead the teams that coordinate and deliver their care.
Recently, chief nursing executive Shanon Fucik, RN, and I joined a hospitalist huddle on the 2 West wing of University Hospital. Led each weekday at 8:30 a.m. by Hasan Naqvi, MD, inpatient chief medical officer, the multiteam meeting centers on a readiness and metrics board similar to what our nurses use in their huddles.
Dr. Naqvi likes to cover several things on these huddles:
- Situational awareness, including the number of patients assigned to each team — delivered at the huddle I attended by house supervisor Chris Lemberger, RN.
- Upcoming transfers of ED and Progressive Care Unit patients to the wards overseen by our hospitalist teams.
- Questions regarding tests and drugs patients may need, such as an IV drug and radiologic contrast material discussed at the huddle I joined.
- Special projects, like ensuring each patient has discharge orders written in the morning to ensure expeditious discharge — a big initiative this year.
- Celebrations, like the decrease in our length-of-stay index via the discharge project and multidisciplinary rounding with care team members.
After the big huddle, each hospitalist team returns to its unit to discuss the individual patients in their care.
Continuing the Conversation
Shanon and I, joined by Dr. Naqvi, sat in on one of those team meetings. The team was led by Kleitia Dida, MD, and included residents Taylor Justison, MD, and Bailey Cortez, MD. Also participating was Kayli Kepko, MSW, a case management supervisor, who helped the team review the needs of patients nearing discharge. Zach Lease, a medical student between his first and second years, was also among the group — gaining valuable early exposure to inpatient medicine and team-based care.
At the end of both the large huddle and the smaller team meeting, I thanked the teams for all they do. I reminded them that they — along with our ED teams — are the face of MU Health Care. Their commitment, coordination, compassion and leadership are what I hope patients remember about the experience.
Sincerely,
Rick Barohn, MD
Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean, School of Medicine
rbarohn@health.missouri.edu
