End of the Year

First of all THANK YOU to each and every one of the members of the BJC Corporate Communications Team. I feel very fortunate to get to work with people who are so dedicated to their jobs and to each other. We continued to be stretched this past year and to rise to the occassion. We welcomed new team members and said goodbye to others. We all know Change is the one constant in life (hows that for ending the year with a much-used cliche. I will refrain from talking about shifting paradigms or stakeholder engagement or pushing the envelope or Vote for Pedro -- another one of my secret favorite movies).
I am looking forward to 2009, but mostly I am looking forward to the end of the work day when I will go home and hang with my children (all three are home -- yea!!!), cook a big dinner for tomorrow and welcome my side of the family, and then do something we have never done before -- spend New Year's someplace other than St. Louis. Yep, Flint and I are heading to Hilton Head with friends for a little non-kid rest and relaxation where you can bet I will try really hard not to read the blackberry or call in to the office. (My husband says this is what you call a Sucker Bet). I wish you all a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season and a Wonderful New Year. See you in 09.
J

Maybe we are not BLOG-Ready

So, I am over two weeks late posting my weekly message and no one has taken me to task. Does this mean that perhaps our Department is not BLOG-ready? Should I perhaps be communicating via weekly e-mail blasts? Or, am I just imagining that the questions asked in my weekly messages are provocative enough to invite comments from you? Are, or we in the age group that has not yet embraced regular use of social media? You may remember that when I began this journey, it was part research to see if BLOGGING has a place as a regular form of communication for BJC? Based on the experience so far, I would say we might be a bit premature in recommending this to leadership as an appropriate method of two-way communication. One of the non-BJC regular readers of this BLOG has suggested I spice it up with photos and other visuals to add interest. Others have suggested that I send out a reminder that there is a new post. Others noted that readers could 'book-mark' the site, so that they would know to occassionally visit. So, I am asking are we BLOG-ready or should this form of communication for our department be abandoned in favor of more traditional methods? I really do look forward to hearing from you.
J

But Your Mother Owns a Beauty Salon

At BJC, each fall we have the opportunity to participate in an All Employee Survey. Yesterday I had the chance to see a broad overview of our department's results and I look forward to sharing them with you over the next few weeks. However, two things caught my eye and gave me "cause for pause" and are the subject of this posting. Some Context: When I was about 7 my parents bought a beauty salon that my mother operated for about 8 years. She was quite the sought after hair stylist and always had a steady stream of customers. And, you would think that my sisters and I would have had the most up-to-date hair styles among our friends. And, you would be wrong. There is an old adage that the doctor's kids are the sickest, the plumber's pipes leak, and the chef's family eats Chef Boy Ar Dee (boy, am I aging myself).
Two areas of our survey results, made me think of these adages and my mother's hair salon and my less than stylish hair growing up. The opportunities for improvement in your views of leadership (me) and communication throughout the department (me, directors and managers). I won't pretend it was easy to see the scores -- it wasn't. But, I believe when you are faced with a challenge you have two choices -- either rise to it or move on. I prefer the rise option. I welcome any feedback you are comfortable sharing on improving these two areas. You can share them in this forum, shoot me an e-mail, or send me an anonymous note. I assure you I have very thick skin (I worked in government for 16 years and spent many Monday nights conducting zoning and land use public hearings, so criticism does not bother me) and truly want to hear from you. I know that I won't always get it right, but you have my commitment that I will try.

Work and Fun -- Mutually Exclusive Events???

Many of you have heard me say that I think it is important to enjoy what you do for a living. After all, the vast majority of our weekday waking hours are spent working. The days go by a lot faster if we feel that what we do makes a difference; we have co-workers with whom we can share the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat; and if we can sometimes have a good old-fashioned belly-laugh because something is so darned funny. I am fortunate that I get to experience these things -- not all the time, but some of the time. In large part, it is because of the very talented BJC communications and marketing team I have the honor of leading. Last Friday, our team had some 'planned fun' taking a little bit longer at lunch and enjoying ourselves at Dave & Busters. While taking time for this kind of fun opportunity is important, it is the thrill of solving a work challenge together that I really enjoy. Whether we solve the challenge with words, pictures, video, the web or a combination, the role of our team in helping to tell the story of BJC and our hospitals and services is a value-added one. Are we perfect? Absolutely, not. But, are we committed to doing the best work possible for our clients each and every time? Absolutely. Is this always easy? I wish. But, fortunately most of the time we do get it right. And that to me makes work fun. What about work is fun for you?

It will only pinch for a moment

Those are the words we heard as children when it was time for the dreaded trip to the doctor's office. Dreaded not because we disliked our pediatrician, but because we were likely to get a shot. Even the choice of a sucker did not quickly dry the tears. But those vaccinations were necessary to keep us healthy. Fast forward to adulthood and we find ourselves in the position of having to get a shot to protect us from the flu. As employees of BJC, the influenza vaccination (or nasal mist) is now mandatory. I confess that I experienced my first flu shot in 2007 when we had the voluntary push for employees to take the vaccine. Not that I was afraid of the pinch, but because I remembered the Swine Flu debacle in the 1970s and because I never got the flu. However, thanks to the information that was shared in 2007, it became clear to me why getting a flu shot was not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do. So this week, I will happily roll up my sleeve and take my shot. As employees of the largest health care provider in the state, we are setting an important example and ensuring that we are doing everything we can for the safety of our patients. I urge each of us to take advantage of the free flu shot and to remember, it will only pinch for a moment.

When your work day turns our differently

I had everything planned for how I would spend Friday, October 17. A 9:00 meeting this morning that would only last about 45 minutes, followed by a quick 'surprise' visit to staff at what we affectionately call 9890 and the Tab, then lunch with Director of Marketing for one of our other hospitals, a meeting on I-64 and then plowing through the piles on my desk and credenza. Of course that was before I was alerted at 5:20 a.m. to the news that there had been a fire at BJSPH and that patients and staff had been evacuated. At least that was the story on the news. The facts were quite different, but a fire at a site takes on a life of its own and zaps any plans you had for how you would spend your work day. There was no evacuation, the fire was contained to a mechanical facility and the hospital was back to normal operations within an hour and a half thanks to the great work of staff and the local fire departments. So, I sit here at 5:33 p.m. now that everything is under control (in our world, that means the facts have now been communicated to as many audiences as we can think of) and wonder if I should now try to make the piles on my desk and credenza smaller or give in to the fact that I am no longer 32 and my energy sometimes depletes faster than it used to and head home. Which scenario do you think won out and why?

When's the upside of this roller coaster ride

When I was little I hated roller coasters for one reason -- the feeling in my stomach as the coaster took the downward plunge. For my siblings that was the thrill. Well, the downward plunge we have been on for the past week has been anything but a thrill as we all anxiously wait for the stock market to do what roller coasters do -- go back up! As I wait, very nervously I admit, I am trying to ensure I am doing everything I can to not panic, to not make any rash decisions, and to make small changes that will help me to save more, spend less (probably what I should be doing anyway). As readers know, I started taking Metro to work and have now expanded to using it to run errands -- saving wear and tear on the car and totally reducing the amount of money I spend on gasoline. I am also not eating out at lunch and dinner as often. To the shock of my husband and our last still-at-home daughter, I have cooked dinner every night this week (I added up the dollars spent on grabbing Mexican from Qdobo or healthy stuff from Crazy Bowls & Wraps or saying "let's meet at Houlihans" and realized we could do much better). I am placing into the recycle bin the Macy's, Talbots, Harolds, Black House/White Market mailings as soon as they come in the mail, lest I be tempted by the Season's Biggest Sale with a 25% additional off coupon to match (yes, I love to shop).
Indeed these are very scary times, but I am thankful that I work for BJC (health care is a much more stable employer than many); am trying to remember that when it comes to retirement savings, when stock prices are low it is a buying opportunity; and focusing on what kept me going as a child on those roller coaster rides was knowing they would be going back up and eventually coming to rest.
I'd love to hear things you are doing or have heard others are doing to weather this economic storm. Please share.

It's an Honor just to be Nominated

It is true that being nominated is an honor, as it is recogniton for a job well done -- but it is also really cool to actually WIN! Each year as summer ends, we learn how our creative and written work has been judged by a group of our peers in the Missouri Hospital Association Show-Me Awards. Thanks to BJC HealthCare's very talented designers, writers, photographers and media staff we generally get to move beyond the honor of the nomination. A hearty congratulations to all of those on our corporate team who had the opportunity to hear "And the Winner Is...." for various projects. With first place honors, the winners are: BJC Media Services, Donna Dalessandro, Kristine Brookes-Quinn, Jane House and Beth Tuttle. With second place wins: Sylvia Sharockman, Lauran Morgan and Kristine Brooks-Quinn. Finally, with third place honors: Tim Mudrovic, Donnal Dalessandro, BJC Media Services, Karen Stewart and Jane House. Congratulations to all of our team members for jobs well done. As you think back over the past year, can you share a project that you worked on that made you really proud? There are many for me, but one that comes to mind is the I-64 closure and making sure we were prepared, rather than panicked. How about you?
J

Why I Love My Job

Okay guys,
This one will be longer than my last, but it truly speaks to why I am so proud to work for BJC HealthCare. I feel very fortunate that most days I truly do love my job (notice, I said "most" not "all"). I have worked for government, private industry and now not-for-profit and found really smart people in all three sectors. But, nowhere have I found employees so committed to their mission as in health care. As you read the commentary below by Steve, I hope it helps you remember the very good work that is done each and everyday at BJC HealthCare and the very important part you play in making it happen!
J

Community Benefit goes beyond Charity Care

Last month, a woman arrived in the emergency department. She was alone, she was in pain and she was frightened. To make matters worse, she did not speak English. She was unable to tell the doctor and nurse what was wrong, and she could not understand the questions they asked of her. Within a few minutes, an interpreter arrived from the hospital’s refugee health and interpreter services, a free service available around the clock to bridge the language and cultural gap between patients and caregivers. The relief of being able to communicate undoubtedly served to lessen the anxiety of the patient’s medical crisis. Hers is one of more than 32,000 such encounters each year that are made possible through this special service at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
Is providing an interpreter for non-English speaking patients a benefit to patients and the community? Is such a benefit of as much value as charity care?
Apparently not, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In recent coverage (a business section article on Sept. 3 followed by an editorial on Sept. 7), the newspaper espouses a narrow definition of “community benefit” as charity care and charity care alone.
In reality, charity care is only one element of community benefit – albeit an important and obvious one. In 2007, the hospitals of BJC HealthCare provided more than $50 million in charity care, more than any other health care organization in Missouri. BJC also subsidized $230 million in underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid and provided an additional $68 million in unreimbursed care that patients were unable to afford.
Our charity care programs are among the most generous in the nation. Many programs across the country provide discounts for family incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty limit while BJC offers discounts for patients in families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level. Additionally, as part of a pending lawsuit settlement, BJC has enhanced this program by offering automatic discounts of 25% for any patient without insurance, regardless of their income.
Misrepresentations continue to appear in the news media regarding nonprofit hospitals and charity care. What seems to repeatedly get lost in translation is that charity care is just one aspect of the obligation hospitals have to their communities. Nonprofit hospitals, in return for their tax-free status, are obligated to provide many community benefits to those they serve. In a community without a public hospital, maintaining nonprofit status for hospitals is the best way to ensure the uninsured and underinsured continue to have access to vital health care services. While taxing hospitals would provide revenues to local, state and federal governments, there is no guarantee that those revenues would be used to provide access to health care for the uninsured.
The definition of community benefit extends beyond this uncompensated care, however, to vital services and programs that would not and could not exist unless hospitals provided them. For example, BJC invested more than $80 million in medical and nursing education, contributed nearly $16 million toward bio-medical research and provided more than $14 million in community outreach efforts during 2007.
That’s a total of $458 million in free medical care, health professions education, medical research and community benefit programs like interpreter services, mammography screenings for low-income women, health screenings in underserved communities and teen smoking cessation programs in area schools, to name but a few. These community benefit programs are no less important than direct medical care, but they go unreported by the Post-Dispatch, and appear to be less appreciated and under-valued. Taken together, these community benefit expenditures add up to almost 15% of BJC operating revenues – substantially more than the 1.75% of revenues attributable to charity care alone.
To someone in medical distress, who does not speak English, or to a woman who cannot otherwise afford a mammogram or to a teen on the brink of a lifelong addiction to nicotine, these programs can and do make an immediate and important difference. Rather than being ignored or disregarded, community benefit programs should be encouraged and embraced by the Post-Dispatch as true investments in the community, just like charity care.

Steven H. Lipstein
President & Chief Executive Officer
BJC HealthCare

It is Easier Being Green

Hi to All:
The "Go Green" Theme of our recent BJC Communications & Marketing Conference, led me to rethink my skepticism about this concept. Remembering all to well the last time our country embarked on environmental consciousness in the late 70s and early 80s (in fact my 1978 unairconditoned Plymouth Horizon was immortalized in a long gasoline waiting line photograph in the local newspaper), I told myself -- "this too shall pass." But, this time there does seem to be something different as 'green' seems to have gone mainstream.
So, I have gotten on the green bandwagon or more accurately, the Metro. For the most part, I have parked my car and am taking Metro to get to and from work and to and from meetings that I have in Clayton and downtown. Because BJC offers the Metro pass discount, I am not only being green, but saving green. I am fortunate to live and work very close to Metro stops which has made it easy for me to get out of my car. However, in keeping with the lessons from our conference, there are lots of things we can all do to incorporate more 'green' into our actions and I encourage you to try some. Would love to hear ideas about what you are doing or may do to 'Go Green.'
J