April 16, 2004
April 2, 2004 Staff first discovered the caring module today.
March 29, 2004 Had a great opportunity to teach
the values module today with the kitchen staff. They decided as a team how
they contributed to fulfilling the values of the District
.
March 24, and 25th, 2004 Attended the Rural
Health Conference in Spokane and discussed the Creating Home and Building
Community Project. Feedback was wonderful from those participating.
We are truly setting milestones for other District's like ourselves
.
March 6, 2004 The Board of commissioners from
Garfield County Hospital District met today to discuss the Strategic Plan for
Garfield County Hospital District
.
February 8, 2004 Returned from Seattle. Had many people share their ideas with us. Many seemed very interested in the Creating Home and Building Community project. We had our story displayed on a story board. Many asked us questions and we were able to hand out some of our material this far. We took many names and numbers to send more information as we move forward in our journey.
February 2, 2004 Fixed web page so that all links will work and updated site. After looking at the past couple of weeks I realized I have attended a lot of meetings and yet have another in which I am leaving tomorrow to go to. This meeting is the Washington Health Foundation Quality Connections 2004 Conference in Seattle where both Andrew and I will be presenting our Quality Process at a roundtable discussion. So I started asking myself, "why so many meetings?" Well, the answer is to get the staff trained in the idea of resident centered care we have to make sure we have the modules ready and that staff are able to understand the purpose behind them. We have had a lot of modules lately for management and others that can attend but I believe that most modules were then taken back to the drawing board when comments for improvement where brought up. So that explains why all the meeting in-house, but why all the meetings everywhere else? My answer, to get the word out and to get the community backing our project, to let people know that we want to improve and we are doing this awesome improvement project. To sum it up, to let people know what is going on and why. So what does all this mean? Well to me it means I board a plane tomorrow evening headed for Seattle with a smile on my face, to let others know at the Quality Conference that we REALLY are gaining quality through our Creating Home and Building Community Project, to let them know we are improving our small rural hospital with just an idea of resident centered care and it really isn't taking a lot to do (so far:)).
January 30, 2004 Attended Garfield County Hospital District organization wide meeting concerning Quality and the Quality process.
January 15, 2004 Attended Garfield County Intervention Committee meeting to explain our progress of our project of Creating Home and Building Community. Seemed to get a lot of community support.
January 12, 2004 Attended Health Watch meeting to explain the Creating Home and Building Community Project. Showed the audience a PowerPoint presentation of what GCHD would like to become.
January 8, 2004 Attended quality training module, another training module set up from Creating Home and Building Community as training aides for staff on the idea of resident directed care.
January 6, 2004 Attended communication training
module. These modules were set up from Creating Home and Building
Community as training aides for staff on the idea of resident directed care.
January 1, 2004 Happy New Year!
December 30, 2003 Attended Gung Ho! workshop.
This workshop discussed the idea of creating a work environment that is very
positive. The idea is to get the work place motivated so that their is
maximum productivity. We will continue to teach this workshop at Garfield
County Hospital District to encourage positive maximum productivity.
December 25, 2003 Merry Christmas Everyone!
December 23, 2003 Received some of the new linens for the Residents. After discussing with the residents their ideas of quilts on the beds, new Patient gowns, and clothing protectors; the Residents decided that they would like new colors in these areas. I ordered the products on December 17th and they are slowly arriving. The Residents really like the quilts and everyone cannot wait to get them on their beds. They got to choose which ones they wanted me to order and really appreciated this fact.
December 22, 2003 Residents had stated earlier
that they liked the idea of having menus at the tables. I have created the
menus and stuck them on the tables to get resident feedback if that is how they
want them.
December 18, 2003 The resident Christmas Party
was tonight. Much fun was had by all. There were many different
types of entertainers from the Golden Girls singing, to the reading of The
Night Before Christmas by Tina Boyd, to Jacob Hirsch singing 'Frosty the
Snowman.' Then to everyone's surprise Santa also visited.
December 12, 2003 Met with two members of the Health Watch Program in Garfield County to discuss the possibility of them helping us with Creating Home and Building Community. The main objective is to get more community involvement in the District and the Creating Home and Building Community project. I will meet again with the entire group on January 12, 2004 to discuss the possibilities of helping our project along.
December 10, 2003 Finished last draft of vision
story.
December 5, 2003 Staff, residents, and community
members met today
to
finish the discussion on Purpose, Mission, Values, and Vision. The
discussion ended with a vote on the new statements and everyone agreed to them.
Garfield County Hospital District has their new purpose, mission, values, and
vision statements complete!
November 26, 2003 Staff, residents, and community
members met today during the fourth Town Hall Meeting
. The
mission statement for the District was discussed and ideas were given. The ideas will then be compiled and put into a mission
statement and taken back to the group on Friday, December 5, 2003.
November 19, 2003 Staff, residents, and community
had their third Town Hall meeting
. Values were discussed more into depth
with some very active brainstorming ideas were given
and then narrowed down. The purpose "Caring for Generations" will continue to
remain the same for Garfield County Hospital District. The group then
ended with a set date for another Town Hall meeting to discuss the Mission of
the District. Town Hall 4 meeting will occur on Wednesday, November 26,
2003 at 2:00 P.M. in the Long-Term Care Dayroom.
November 18, 2003 Attended Q- Dash (Quality Data
Analysis System for Hospitals) meeting to learn how to put resident, staff, and
community survey's into report format. This will help to keep the
statistics of Creating Home and Building Community into 1 area and to show the data into different
report styles. An example would be at one location one can find out how satisfied
residents are in a bar graph. This system will be put into play during the
entire Creative Home and Building Community project to monitor resident satisfaction.
November 6, 2003 The last de-briefing occurred
today during lunchtime. The last group met to have another open feedback
session where they could give their opinions on what they learned, saw, and
thought we could do here at GCHD.
The group
said that there was not much we had to do to achieve the environment and
atmosphere that The Mount had. We have a small environment and for once
this is a benefit to us. We can become a small, secure community within
our self. Many ideas of how we could provide different services and move
things around to give residents more choices were discussed. The idea of
carpet in the hallways was brought up with the idea that it would need to be
replaced every 5-6 years. Staff were on both sides of the board for this
discussion. It was also brought up what the residents said at their
resident meeting on the 5th. Staff agreed we need to work hand in hand
with the residents to accomplish this change.
November 6, 2003 With the discussion from Wednesday, the idea of moving the dayroom approached. Again the residents were asked for their feedback on the idea of moving furniture around in the dayroom and the residents agreed it would be nice to see some change. Staff members proceeded moving the furniture around so that the living room area was more like a living room and that there was an actual activity place location. The residents agreed that they liked the arrangement better and it was more workable to them.
November 5, 2003 Today their was a meeting for
the residents to get their feedback on some possible different color fabrics.
The residents were asked if they would like other colors for washcloths and
towels besides white.
The residents are perfectly happy with white so we
will continue to have white washcloths and towels. A PowerPoint
presentation of The Mount was shown since no residents were able to attend any
of the training sessions located at The Mount. There were many questions
about The Mount and the possibilities we have here at GCHD. Residents also
mentioned that they would like to tour other facilities to see how they work
closer to home. It was decided
that there would be many more meetings to get resident feedback on the possible
changes.
October 30, 2003 The team met at The Mount at 8 AM with a day of job shadowing ahead of them. They each were paired up with staff from The Mount. All team members learned much from the shadow person. The team met together at noon for lunch with Charlene Boyd the Administrator for a Question and Answer session and a de-briefing. The team then went to the airport and was in route to Walla Walla. They arrived home at 10 P.M. All very tired and so excited to make some changes in their own workplaces.
October 29, 2003 The last team of 16 staff
members left GCHD at 9 AM headed for Walla Walla in route to Seattle and The
Mount. All arrived safely and excited to see what the other groups have
been discussing all around the facility. They had a warm welcome from the
residents and staff members from The Mount. They had lunch and then began
afternoon meetings with lead staff members at The Mount. They also had a
brief tour of The Mount and the neighborhoods it had. The team ended their
day with group dinners at the hotel.
October 24, 2003 We had a group de-briefing of
all the groups that had attended the training at The Mount. The meeting
was an open discussion on what staff members saw and thought about The Mount.
They provided much feedback and discussed the possibilities for GCHD. All
seemed excited and willing to participate in the new philosophy. All staff
seemed excited about the possible changes that could happen and all believe that
it would only better the facility. Danyle Thomas took notes
during
the meeting as staff were throwing out ideas and feedback on what they learned.
October 24, 2003 The third team arrived back at work today all excited about what they had learned at The Mount. All were excited to put into play what they had seen at The Mount. Many said that GCHD did not have far to go to make a homelike environment. That the caring staff could achieve this with much ease.
October 23, 2003 The team arrived at The Mount at 8 A.M. for their morning of job shadowing. Each member was paired with a staff member from The Mount that had their same type of job. This job shadowing was very helpful to GCHD staff. The GCHD staff met together as a team with Charlene Boyd for lunch, de-briefing, and question and answer session. The team was then taken to the airport for their flight home. After a small mix-up (the plane was overbooked ) the all or nothing team members finally loaded the plane destined for Spokane. The team arrived back in Pomeroy at 9:30 PM safely.
October 22, 2003 The third team of 13 staff
members loaded onto a van this morning at 6:45 in route to Spokane.
All were
excited to go, yet hesitating the long van ride to Spokane. The group
stopped in Colfax for a quick bite to eat at the gas station, and then continued
towards Spokane. They arrived at Spokane at 9:30 and checked in for their
flight at 11:00. They arrived in Seattle and loaded onto another van for
the trip to The Mount. The group finally arrived at The Mount at 2 P.M. all
excited yet some very tired from the van rides and flight. They had a
brief tour of the facility and then had meetings scheduled the rest of the
afternoon. The team left The Mount at 5:30P.M. for the hotel rooms.
After checking in a few groups had dinner with each other and discussed what
their thoughts were of The Mount.
October 11, 2003 Team members returned to work today. All were very excited and brought back wonderful ideas that they could use in their jobs that they had learned from The Mount. All said it was a wonderful experience, and that they hoped that everyone would go. The Mount has a wonderful atmosphere that GCHD employees would like to see here at home. Their homelike environment was peaceful, relaxing, warm, and very friendly. The team mentioned how wonderful the artwork and color schemes were at The Mount. They said that the warm colors, helped to make a calm, secure, loving environment.
October 10, 2003 The team met at 8 A.M. with The Mount staff for a morning of job shadowing. Each staff member was paired with someone in their same department from The Mount. The team joined each other at noon for lunch with Charlene Boyd and a de-briefing session where Charlene answered questions along with other lead staff personal. The team then loaded onto a van and went to Sea-Tac where they loaded a plane and headed for Walla Walla. The team arrived finally at 10 P.M. at Garfield County Hospital District.
October 9, 2003 We sent the second team of 8
staff members to The Mount.
All were
excited to get there and see what they had heard so much about from the first
group. They flew out of Walla Walla in route to Seattle. They
arrived safely and had a wonderful welcoming from the staff and residents too at
the Mount. They toured the facility and then began their meetings on how
The Mount works behind the scenes. They returned to their hotel at 6 P.M.
and and a group dinner discussing what they had seen that day. The group
all seemed to enjoy what they had seen. They discussed what changes they
could possibly make here at Garfield County Hospital District.
October 4, 2003 Team members who visited The Mount arrived back at work today. All were excited about what they saw and learned on the two day trip. Although they said it was a lot of information in a short period, all seemed excited to start implementing what they learned about Homelike care here in the District. All staff that did not attend this trip were very excited hearing what the team had seen and learned. Many more were ready to attend the training.
October 3, 2003 Arrived again at the Mount and each staff member was teamed with their twin at the Mount. They job shadowed the staff to see how The Mount staff approaches their jobs. After shadowing, the team met with Charlene Boyd to get a debriefing of the past 2 days. The team then loaded onto an airplane in route to Walla Walla. The team returned to Garfield County Hospital District at 10 P.M. very tired and yet very excited.
October 2, 2003 We sent the first team of 13
staff members to Mount St. Vincent in Seattle.
They flew
out of Walla Walla in route to Seattle. Arrived safely and had a wonderful
welcoming from the staff and residents at The Mount. Had a quick tour of
the facility and then began meetings on how the Mount works behind the scenes.
Returned to hotel and had dinner together discussing what they had seen that
day.
September 24, 2003 Conducted second Town Hall
Meeting to discuss
values, mission, vision, and purpose. Only accomplished part of value
discussion, cut short because of time.
May 28, 2003 Conducted first Town Hall
Meeting for
residents, staff, and community. The meeting was conducted to discuss the
community vision for improvements to long-term care. The discussion
focused on a vision for developing a resident centered environment of care that
reflects the warmth and charm of home.
May, 2003 Received notification that Garfield
County Hospital District had received the Hulda B. and Maurice L. Rothschild
Foundation Creating Home and Building Community National Award
in recognition of the Districts commitment to ensure that the individuals who
enter it's facility retain the self-sufficiency, autonomy, and dignity they have
known throughout their lives.
March 22, 2003 A facility Planning Grid was created to focus on the areas of improvement.
January 22, 2003 A public meeting was held to review
facility utilization plans and discuss the use of District facilities and the
Facility Master Plan
the minutes can also be found by clicking the man at the desk
January 17-18, 2003 Today Health Facilities Planning and Development conducted a community telephone survey
December 5-6, 2002 Managers attended a Rapid Cycle Workshop today to explain hopes, concerns, criteria, improved efficiencies, improved financial contribution, and to brainstorm location options.
September, 2002 Six options were proposed to the
residents, staff, and community members for consideration.
September 19, 2003 Health Facilities Planning and
Development conducted an on site review of acute, outpatient and long-term
operations in order to evaluate opportunities to improve operating efficiencies.
August, 2002 Created Health Facilities Planning and Development report with options that are possible.
March, 2002 Today, the report from Health Facilities Planning and Development Company concerning space and staffing needs was received.
January, 2002 A staff focus group meeting was held today concerning the strengths, opportunities, expectations, and function of Garfield County Hospital District
January 12, 2002 Board Meeting concerning initial
strategic plan.
January 11, 2002 A Community Focus Group meeting
was held today concerning the strengths, opportunities, expectations, and
function of Garfield County Hospital District.
November, 2001 Garfield County Memorial Hospital retained Health Facilities Planning and Development to support its current strategic planning efforts sponsored in part by a grant from the Washington State Office of Community and Rural Health's Rural Flexibility grant program
November 1, 2001 Received notification that Garfield County Hospital District received a grant through the federal Critical Access Hospital Program.
July 5, 2001 Started looking at Facility Planning
and Development Companies to support strategic planning efforts
October, 2001 Applied for Facilities Planning Grant from DOH Office of Rural Health
February 28, 2001 Board accepted original Creating Home and Building Community Strategic Plan