HCT’s unique “Hospital Transformation Intervention™” is a culture change initiative with rapid implementation that encompasses a wide-ranging set of performance improvement activities targeting, in particular, the areas of Clinical Quality (EBM, LOS, Interqual, HAI), Operational Efficiency (Productivity, ED and OR throughput, Nursing, Patient Access, etc.), and Service Excellence (Patient HCAHPS, Physician, and Employee Satisfaction).

A typical Intervention involves many aspects of hospital operations and engages key staffers from numerous departments in an intense four-phase program of analysis, solutions identification, rapid change implementation and performance management supported by an ongoing program of communications and training.

What the “Hospital Transformation Intervention™” is NOT is a cookie-cutter, off-the-shelf, or one-size-fits-all approach. While it involves a wide range of tested and proven solutions that have been implemented successfully in hospitals across the country, each “Hospital Transformation ™” intervention is essentially “custom-designed” for each hospital, because it is the hospital’s own personnel and leadership who define what the main performance gaps are in their hospital, and then design a solutions set that addresses those gaps specifically within that hospital’s unique economic and community setting.

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HCT’s unique “Hospital Transformation Intervention™” is successful, first and foremost, because it focuses on changing the entire culture within the client hospital, not on merely addressing one or another specific problem in a piece-meal, “band-aid” approach to performance improvement. Patient care in the hospital setting is necessarily multidisciplinary. It involves many interconnected and interdependent operations. A failure at any point in the continuum can have a dramatic impact on both outcomes and patient attitudes, as well as on the hospital’s bottom line. The “Hospital Transformation™” intervention aims to instill a permanent quality consciousness and continuous improvement mindset throughout the organization, and leave in place methods and mechanisms that will support and nurture quality in every phase of operations.

Second, the Intervention focuses on equipping the hospital’s leadership and staff both to effectively promote a new corporate culture within the hospital, and then carry on the problem-analysis and change-implementation functions of the Intervention on their own, without the need for significant outside help or resource supplementation.

Third, the Intervention is extremely intensive. It is a “total immersion” approach that involves all key players in a program of orientation, problem definition and design, rapid solution implementation and performance management that usually lasts 8 to 12 weeks. The intense energy of, and the wide-ranging employee participation in, a typical “Hospital Transformation™” intervention are important contributors to the Intervention’s success. This is largely due to the desire that most healthcare workers have to provide high quality, effective patient care. It also results from involving these healthcare workers in finding appropriate solutions to issues and helping implement them.

And fourth, the “Hospital Transformation™ intervention is based on tried and true principles of sound patient care and efficient healthcare operations.

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At the beginning of a “Hospital Transformation Intervention™” an HCT Transformation Team arrives on site for an intense, four-week period of analysis, baseline audits, staff interviews, and consultations with a Hospital Transformation Team appointed by the hospital’s leadership. Each site visit begins with a “Quality Summit” with the hospital’s internal Transformation Team, during which the origins, purpose and goals of the “Hospital Transformation™” intervention are spelled out, roles are defined, and timetables are established. Then, over the course of the next two to three months, through a continuing and intensive series of meetings and training workshops, our HCT field team works closely on site with the hospital’s own Transformation Team to:

• Help the hospital establish realistic baseline values for the key metrics that will be tracked at the hospital through the performance improvement initiative;
• Begin identifying the key quality and safety issues at the hospital, and prioritizing them for action according to their benefit potential and their ease of implementation;
• Train the hospital’s management teams in a wide range of problem definition, problem solving, process control, and resource allocation techniques (including “lean” operation techniques, statistical process control methodologies, survey and feedback techniques, etc.);
• Train the hospital personnel in a wide range of interpersonal and intellectual skills (such as leadership, critical thinking, conflict-management, team-building, coaching and facilitation, communication, and others); and
• Help the hospital establish systems, procedures, and programs to both ensure the persistence of a quality consciousness and support continuous improvement in all areas of hospital operations once the initial phase of the “Hospital Transformation™ intervention had been completed.

After the initial 2- to 3-month phase of daily on-site interaction and training, our HCT field team then revisits the client hospital on a regular basis to provide continuing feedback and additional training and skills-building (e.g., for new hires), and help the hospital evaluate the effectiveness of whatever quality and safety improvements that have been made up until that point.

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The following is a list of some of the core metrics impacted directly through a typical “Hospital Transformation Intervention™” ; for clients with needs in just one or two of these performance areas, HCT can help design specifically targeted interventions to cure the problem quickly and permanently:

Clinical Quality Improve performance on evidence-based medicine (e.g., Core Measures) Reducing hospital acquired infections Improving case management and utilization management to achieve greater efficiency LOS reduction strategies JCAHO Compliance and Preparation Service Excellence Patient Satisfaction – HCAHPS Physician Satisfaction Employee Satisfaction Measurement Balanced Scorecard CMS Requirements Service Line Assistance Center of Excellence Designation

Operations Efficiency Emergency Department ALOS Admitted Patients ALOS Discharged Patients Diversion Hours LWBS Preoperative Services Start Delays Turnover Nursing Units Patient Flow Retention Room turnover times Ancillary Departments Lab Cardiopulmonary Imaging Patient Access Registration Admissions Discharges Productivity Daily Staffing, Long-Term Staffing, and Scheduling Productive, Nonproductive, and Paid Hours Contract Hours Man Hours per Unit of Service

Return on Investment Opportunities
Many organizations have a difficult time in measuring return on investment (ROI) with their implementation. Data does exist to confirm financial, clinical and organizational ROI and will help your organization identify ROI measures for your implementation and help plan for collection of baseline and ongoing data. HCT Clients average a greater than 5 to 1 ROI on projects.

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