July is in full swing, and school is out for the summer. Many of you will take some time off to be with family and friends; maybe explore new destinations. Others may opt for a “staycation” to relax in sunny Southern California. Whatever your plans, I hope you find moments to refresh and reflect.

As I look back on the past year, I am deeply grateful for your outstanding contributions to our work. Since starting as CEO last May, I have prioritized listening to your ideas, concerns, and solutions because it’s crucial that we hear from those on the front lines so we can provide the best care for our deserving community.  It was humbling and heartwarming to personally thank many of you at our staff luncheons last week and share the full list of what we’ve accomplished together this year thanks to your active engagement. Following is a brief recap.

#1 - Implementing staff ideas on process design mapping

Our “rooming” and improvement initiatives have significantly enhanced our patient experience, improving clinic throughput and reducing patient waiting times. We’ve also reduced rooming time to less than 10 minutes, completing all health screenings and population health measurements, and developing an initial profile for physicians before they see patients. This is all thanks to the medical assistants who have worked tirelessly to redesign workflows, improve processes, develop scripts, and conduct daily huddles to ensure patient needs are met.

#2 – Frontline Focus Group – a dedicated forum for change management

Another significant improvement area has been our communication with patients through the Epic portal. Through a focused effort by physicians and the clinical team, we redesigned the process to steer messages to the appropriate individuals, thus improving response times. We also developed a service center, increased the number of medical assistants, and streamlined communication. This collaborative effort has significantly reduced the cycle time for portal inquiries, referrals, authorizations, and call response times. This has allowed patients to now send messages with any questions about their care or administrative issues

#3 – Ensuring we are staffed appropriately to deliver high-quality care

We have also continued to focus on making UCR Health a great workplace by:

• Hiring more medical assistants, patient care coordinators, and call center representatives
• Increasing staff engagement, and involvement in change management
• Decreasing last minute cancellations by implementing the time-off process
• Implementing par levels, control measures and inventory designation processes
• Ensuring more career development programs and elevating skill sets through training and development
• Investing in our staff by deploying the MA mentorship program with the goal to encourage unity,  establish a buddy system and give experienced MAs the opportunity to lead

While this is not an exhaustive list, it certainly depicts what we can accomplish together. We continue to address your thoughts and concerns and look forward to our next Employee Engagement Survey kicking off next month to further assess our progress and identify additional areas for improvement. Please take some time to read the “Save the Date” section of this issue and keep an eye out for your unique Press Ganey survey link on August 05. Your feedback matters, and it has direct impact on the health and well-being of our patients.

I continue to be excited about what we’re accomplishing as a team.

Thank you for all you do, and I hope you have a wonderful July.

Best regards,