Dive Brief:
- Readmission rates for Indiana University Health Saxony's hip and knee replacement program are at 0.74%. That's over seven times lower than the national average, and length of stay is very low as well.
- The 42-bed hospital has accomplished this feat by borrowing moves it learned from the Ritz-Carlton. The hotel giant offers top-drawer customer service by holding daily staff meetings to assure that staffers know what every guest needs.
- In following the hotel's example, the IU Saxony Hospital perioperative team holds a meeting every Friday morning to discuss what's needed for the next week's upcoming patients and scheduled surgeries. Attendees include internists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and even med device reps and the hospital chaplain.
Dive Insight:
Not only have they influenced readmissions and length of stay, the patient-focused Friday meetings have had an impact on patient satisfaction as well. In other words, it seems clear that they've been beneficial. However, participants warn that they began these get-together when the hospital opened its doors, avoiding bureaucratic entanglements that might have arisen at an established hospital.
To kick off such a program at an existing hospital, key elements include having a strong surgeon leader to drive the effort and seeing to it that executives are on board with this approach, says R. Michael Meneghini, MD, the joint replacement program's head. When talking to hospital leaders, he recommends stressing the cost-savings that can be generated by pre-surgical preparation, as it lowers medical error rates and reduces lengths of stay.