Hello, my UCR Health colleagues.

Wow. It’s June already. Summer stretches before us and I suspect we’re all looking forward to spending time at the beach, local fairs, and more. We’re also looking forward to what’s happening here in our organization. It’s definitely a time of change and transformation but those are two words synonymous with opportunity and possibility. Allow me to prove that by highlighting just some of what our team has accomplished by working together toward our common quality-care-always goal.

• Patient Access Center (PAC). This department, formerly known as the call center, was tasked with having a live UCR Health Representative answer 85% of calls within 5 minutes while also reducing the number of unanswered calls by more than 50%. Project leads Linda Roney and Danielle Bowers, along with all of our PAC agents worked with the team to implement a redesigned PAC phone tree, standardize workflows, and implement a Spanish speaker queue, along with on-board training (Thank you, Danielle!). The result? Calls answered within 5 minutes are up 13.3%. We’re well on our way to target!

• Follow-up on Test Results. We needed to make some substantial improvements regarding the timely delivery of test results to our patients. Due to the variation among providers and departments, along with the multiple types of tests performed, patients were having to wait longer than sometimes necessary to receive information. Team members Linda Roney, Krystyn Guillen, Dr. Behbehani, Dr. Glassy, Dr. Trikamji, Diana Armenta, and Dr. Porta all worked together with their team to increase our Press Ganey All Facilities Rank by four percentile rankings. Excellent work!

• Provider In-Basket Project. We all know things pile up in our in-box. In the past, our patient messages, test results, and prescription refill requests weren’t being responded to in a timely manner resulting in increased patient care issues, complaints, and call volumes. Project team members Linda Roney, Danielle Bowers, and Krystyn Guillen worked with the team to ensure that in-basket non-urgent tasks were addressed within 3 business days while urgent tasks were addressed within 1 business day. After just 13 weeks, the process improvement (PI) in-basket management team improved our response by 96%. Phenomenal!

And we’re just getting started. Our next big initiative is the new patient experience rooming and encounter process redesign. Currently, there is quite a bit of variation in the rooming and encounter process between our various sites and clinical areas resulting in missed opportunities to serve our patients. Help us achieve our goal to target a 10-minute rooming process and reduce the number of care gaps by 80% from baseline performance by participating in the UCR Health rooming and encounter process redesign.  Want to get involved? Join us in person at Citrus Tower or collaborate virtually on June 14 from 5:15 – 6 p.m.

Be a part of our process improvement efforts. Even if you don’t know how to get started, we’re here to help. Contact Linda Roney at linda.roney@medsch.ucr.edu.

This is a very exciting time for UCR Health and I’m so thankful you are all along with me as we work to achieve more ‘wins’ as we bring health home to our communities.