Welcome to our True North e-newsletter, which is designed to provide our physicians and AHPs a better vehicle to share information about UCSF Health improvement activities, upcoming events, and perhaps other objectives based on your continued feedback.
What is “True North” and why is it important?
True North pillars represent our long-term objectives – what we need to accomplish to achieve our vision - because they serve as a constant guide for aligning and prioritizing our work. The UCSF Health True North pillars should not surprise you. In fact, we hope the areas of patient experience, quality and safety, our people, financial strength, strategic growth and learning health system reflect active improvement efforts you’ve participated in or have observed in your practice settings. The True North pillars are also important since they serve as a communication vehicle and common language to link our daily work to what's important in allowing us to continually become better versions of ourselves.
How are we doing with our True North metrics?
Please review our currentTrue North scorecard that continues to serve as one lens into our organizational priorities and performance. This month's communication focuses on our Net Promoter Survey results and an update about our Learning Health System metric.
The Net Promoter results are in. How did we do?
Hopefully, you've seen the initial communications sharing the results from our NPS, which demonstrated an improvement of 5 points for the physicians and 8 points for the AHPs. In the coming weeks, there will be opportunities to further understand the data in local areas, reflect on the rich comments shared about what's working well and where we need additional attention, and learn from areas that have made the biggest improvements. You should also know that the Gallup Engagement Survey for our staff is currently open so we will learn more about their experiences soon as well.
What does our new Learning Health System metric mean?
In an effort to cultivate meaningful work into the LHS pillar, we've set a goal of having 80% of True North Boards populated with an LHS project. The early months with this metric will reflect a growing numerator of new projects populating the LHS pillar, but also a growing denominator with new visibility boards being implemented across the organization. Staff education initiatives, spreading of best practices, and trainee-led projects are among the most common phenotypes on current boards. Many have requested additional guidance on what work could (or should) be included in the LHS pillar and our intent was to learn from what is currently being made visible to guide next year's efforts.
News and Announcements
Grade "A" for Safety
There are many external bodies (and growing) that attempt to evaluate the quality and safety of care we provide at UCSF Health. Each may define quality and safety differently, weight the same metrics differently, and apply different risk adjustment modeling to those metrics. It's why it can often be confusing to see our performance appear different pending on the source. This past month, the Leapfrog Group announced their annual Hospital Safety Grades and both UCSF Medical Center at Parnassus and Mission Bay received an "A" grade, a distinction awarded to only 30% of hospitals. It's a testament to the care all of you provide to our patients.
Schwartz Rounds
This month’s Schwartz Rounds will take place on May 15th at Parnassus, HSW-301 and will feature “Caring for the Homeless and Marginally Housed"; as with other Schwartz Rounds, the goal is to foster an open discussion about the emotional impact of caring for patients. Please see the flyer for additional details.
Adverse Event Disclosure Training
How should I communicate adverse events with patients and families? UCSF Health has a strong policy that supports disclosure of adverse event and complications. It's not always an easy conversation to have and we've had cases where speculative or inappropriate disclosure created unnecessary distress for patients and providers. A terrific half-day training course is being offered on May 25th that is case-based and interactive. Please see the flyer for additional details and how to register.
Poster e-Submissions Due by May 16th
3rd Annual UCSF Health Improvement Poster Symposium
Share Your Improvement Work!
Wednesday, May 30th from 4-7p at the Robertson Auditorium, Mission Bay
