OPENNESS AND COMMUNICATION INITIATIVES

Employee Communication

Employee Town Meetings
Fletcher Allen President and Chief Executive Officer Melinda Estes, M.D., holds Employee Town Meetings to share information and encourage feedback from employees. The meetings have helped improve communication between Fletcher Allen senior leadership and front-line employees. In addition, Fletcher Allen holds quarterly meetings for all of leadership – from supervisors through senior vice presidents – and quarterly meetings with all director-level employees.

"Just Ask" Program
In late 2003, Fletcher Allen implemented a "Just Ask" program. Through this program, employees can ask questions or offer comments to senior leaders at Fletcher Allen and receive responses in a "Just Ask" newsletter published by the Human Resources Department. Employees submit their questions through email, or in drop-boxes at different locations throughout the organization.

Employee Survey
In October and November of 2006, Fletcher Allen employees participated in an opinion survey administered across the organization.  The survey -- conducted by Baird/Borling Associates and following an employee survey conducted in December of 2004 -- addressed employees’ general satisfaction as well as satisfaction with specific dimensions of the workplace. A total of 3,130 employees completed the survey, for a 60 percent response rate. Results of the survey were distributed to all departments and leaders are collaborating with staff to develop department-specific action plans.

Employee Advisory Committee
Fletcher Allen’s 20-member Employee Advisory Committee encourages employee input on workplace issues. This committee discusses issues that directly impact employee satisfaction, with the goal of enhancing communication between senior leadership and employees.


Other Openness Initiatives

Plan for Improving Institutional Communication and Openness
Fletcher Allen adopted a plan for improving institutional communication and openness in 2004, in response to one of the conditions of the Renaissance Project Certificate of Need (CON) approval, which was issued in November 2003. The goal of this plan is to improve Fletcher Allen's communication process, and to ensure increased transparency and inclusiveness in our operations and decision-making. To view a full copy of the plan click here. For more information, call the Office of the General Counsel at (802) 847-3968.

Public Reporting of Quality Data
In February 2006, as part of its commitment to service excellence, Fletcher Allen launched a new Quality of Care section on its public Web site, providing detailed information about how it performs on quality of care measures. The new Web site includes measures that are publicly available in Fletcher Allen’s Act 53 Quality Report, as well as additional quality measures for birthing, cardiology, general surgery, heart surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopaedics, neurology, pneumonia care, pediatrics at Vermont Children's Hospital and nursing. Each section includes data on clinical information, length of stay, patient satisfaction, and numbers of cases seen (volume). To visit the site, go to: http://www.FletcherAllen.org/Quality/index.html

“Speak Up” Campaign
In April 2007, Fletcher Allen Health Care announced its participation in a nationwide campaign called “Speak Up” that encourages patients to be active participants in their health care and help improve the safety of their care. The campaign urges patients to take a role in preventing health care errors by becoming active, involved and informed participants in their care.  As part of this campaign, Fletcher Allen is educating its Medical Staff about “Speak Up,” and is encouraging providers to seek out patients’ questions and concerns. Fletcher Allen also launched a public awareness campaign to inform the community about this program – through advertisements, news media interviews, and posters and brochures distributed throughout the organization. For more information, call Marketing & Communications at (802) 847-2886.


STRATEGIC PLANNING AND DECISION-MAKING

Fletcher Allen’s Strategic Plan
Fletcher Allen recently initiated a new strategic planning process for the organization, looking out to the year 2010 and beyond. This process is based on the principles of the Balanced Scorecard, an approach to strategic management developed by professors at the Harvard Business School designed to help organizations clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. Using the scorecard as a guide, Fletcher Allen’s administrative and clinical leaders have developed a strategy management system. This system will allow the organization to clearly articulate its vision and strategy, measure progress towards reaching its goals, allocate resources to critical projects and initiatives, and ensure that all areas of the organization are aligned and working together in support of the strategy. Fletcher Allen will be conducting research – both qualitative and quantitative – to inform its strategic planning process. For more information about this process, contact Diana Scalise, vice president of Planning, at (802) 847-3964.

Regional Planning Efforts
Fletcher Allen, in partnership with the Champlain Initiative, the Regional Planning Commission, and the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation (GBIC), is participating in an interdisciplinary planning effort designed to build connections among planning efforts at organizations in different fields throughout the region. For more information about this effort, contact Diana Scalise, vice president of Planning, at (802) 847-3964.

The Mental Health Program Quality Committee
This committee, originally established as a subcommittee of the Mental Health Task Force, meets monthly and is open to the public. It includes representatives of a broad range of mental health advocacy groups, representatives of the Vermont Division of Mental Health Services, members of the public, health care providers, and consumer and family members. For more information, contact Mary LaCasse at (802) 847-2124.

Patient Focus Group
In the spring of 2007, as part of the planning process for the replacement of its Radiation Oncology facility, Fletcher Allen invited patients and family members to meet with Fletcher Allen staff, architects and planners to provide input into the project. A group of 11 people, including nine patients and two family members, came together to share their opinions about the current facility and offer ideas for designing the new facility. The group will continue to be involved as Fletcher Allen moves through the planning and building processes.

Ward 1 Parking and Traffic Task Force
In 1999, as part of a Memorandum of Understanding and Agreement between the City of Burlington and Fletcher Allen, Fletcher Allen established a task force to address parking and traffic related to the construction of Fletcher Allen's Ambulatory Care Center. The task force continues today and has remained active. It consists of representatives from the Ward 1 Neighborhood Planning Assembly and Fletcher Allen. The work of the task force guides Fletcher Allen's strategic planning and decision-making concerning parking and traffic issues on the Medical Center Campus.

Vermont Children's Hospital Community Advisory Council
The Vermont Children's Hospital Community Advisory Council is a group of representatives from non-profits, businesses, the education sector, social services, children's services, state agencies and the Vermont Legislature, along with parents in the community and physicians, nurses and staff from the Vermont Children's Hospital at Fletcher Allen Health Care. The group began meeting in January 2004 and meets on a quarterly basis. Council members are asked to serve as consultants in the strategic planning of new initiatives for Vermont Children's Hospital; to provide input from the community so the Vermont Children's Hospital is meeting the needs of those it serves; to review the progress of ongoing clinical, educational, research and financial developments that are designed to improve care to children in the community; and to be ambassadors on an ongoing basis for the work of Vermont Children's Hospital by helping to define our goals and objectives for each fiscal/academic year.

Elder Care Council
In September 2003, Fletcher Allen formed a Community Elder Care Council composed of 15 representatives from local non-profit agencies, the state of Vermont Agency on Disability, Aging and Independent Living, researchers from the University of Vermont, a primary care physician, and the community at large, in addition to four staff members from Fletcher Allen's Elder Care Services. The council works with Elder Care Services to help prioritize elder care issues in the community and state, and develop strategies to address them. The council meets quarterly.

Collaboration with Other Hospitals, Health Systems and Agencies
Fletcher Allen is actively engaged with hospitals, health systems and agencies in Vermont, as well as in areas of New York and New Hampshire, to ensure that its strategic plan responds to the needs of people in outlying communities as appropriately as possible. It is also engaged in collaborative efforts to improve health care services and technology throughout the state. Examples of these efforts include: 

• Establishment of outreach clinics throughout Vermont and northern New York to ensure access to specialty services in local communities as appropriate and requested. Fletcher Allen's health care professionals are currently involved in more than 100 outreach programs, clinics or services. Examples of such services include clinics in cardiology, neurosurgery, pediatric surgery, rheumatology, otolaryngology, dermatology, endocrinology, perinatal outreach and teletrauma services. In addition, Fletcher Allen specialists help local community hospitals start up and provide programs that benefit the people of their community. For example, Fletcher Allen recently worked with Springfield Hospital to help the organization build and run its own laboratory. Fletcher Allen specialists also have filled in at community hospitals where there have been critical needs. This past year, the radiologist at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, Vt., was unable to work due to a medical emergency. Fletcher Allen Radiology offered to provide radiology services at the hospital to ensure those services continued.

• Laboratory Outreach Services. Fletcher Allen’s laboratory has had an extensive outreach program for more than 25 years and currently serves as the reference laboratory for most of the hospitals in Vermont. In addition, Fletcher Allen is a founding member and serves as the reference laboratory for the Northeast Clinical Laboratory Alliance – a group of hospitals in Vermont. NECLA was formed in 1996.

• Ensuring appropriate access to critical care transport services through Fletcher Allen Coordinated Transport (FACT), a wholly-owned subsidiary that owns and operates ambulances in Vermont and northern New York. FACT is based in Burlington, and also has an ambulance stationed in Malone, N.Y. to ensure appropriate access to this service for people in that region. 

• Participation in the Governor's Chronic Care Initiative. Fletcher Allen and the University of Vermont College of Medicine work closely with the Vermont Department of Health on the Vermont Blueprint for Health, a public-private partnership charged with designing and implementing the chronic care model for health care in order to improve health outcomes and reduce costs. Current efforts focus on diabetes, and will later be expanded to include other chronic diseases such as hypertension, asthma, heart disease and depression. As part of its work in this area, Fletcher Allen’s primary care sites recently formed teams of four or more people to plan full implementation of the chronic care model at their practices. This includes assuring that all patients with diabetes are included in a registry, the Vermont Diabetes Information System (VDIS), and that practices use consistent protocols in working with patients with diabetes. In addition, Community Health Improvement at Fletcher Allen has developed a fax referral form for use by providers and their patients that will encourage dialogue about and referral to community health outreach programs at Fletcher Allen. These programs include tobacco cessation, Healthier Living Workshops, the Diabetes Fitness Program, research services at the Frymoyer Community Health Resource Center, and referrals to certified diabetes educators.

• Participation in the Vermont Program for Quality in Health Care. VPQHC is a private, non-profit corporation focused on statewide health care quality initiatives. Fletcher Allen's vice president for Quality serves on its board of directors, and approximately 12.5 percent of VPQHC's total annual budget comes from our institution. Numerous Fletcher Allen physicians and nurses actively participate on VPQHC projects.

• Collaborating with the state of Vermont on the creation of a new, more modern approach to psychiatric care to replace the Vermont State Hospital. Fletcher Allen, as the state’s academic health center, has been a key participant in this ongoing dialogue. Robert Pierattini, M.D., physician leader of Psychiatry at Fletcher Allen, represented Fletcher Allen’s Psychiatry Service in these discussions, and served on The Futures Advisory Committee, a group of Vermont citizens and mental health professionals that studied redesigning the state’s mental health system. In July, 2005, Fletcher Allen entered into a contract with the state to provide psychiatric services and clinical leadership to the Vermont State Hospital, helping to resolve physician staffing issues.

• Collaborating with Vermont HITEC to launch an education and training program to address the shortage of qualified medical personnel in Vermont. In 2005, Fletcher Allen and Vermont HITEC teamed up to train medical transcriptionists and eliminate Fletcher Allen’s need to outsource this service overseas. As a result, Fletcher Allen hired 20 Vermonters as transcriptionists. In the fall of 2006, Fletcher Allen and Vermont HITEC announced a new training program for practice support specialists and registration representatives. Fifteen Vermonters completed that training and began jobs at Fletcher Allen in March 2007. The two organizations will continue working together to train and employ unemployed and under-employed Vermont residents for hard-to-fill jobs at Fletcher Allen in the future.

• Collaborating with the state of Vermont and Vermont hospitals and health care organizations to promote the use of health information technology and develop a statewide information technology plan. In November, 2004, a 501(c) (3) organization, Vermont Information Technology Leaders, or VITL, was formed to oversee this effort. Fletcher Allen Chief Operating Officer Angie Marano serves on the VITL board, and employees from Fletcher Allen’s Information Services are actively involved with the project. A final report on the statewide information technology plan is expected to be completed in June 2007. In addition, VITL has started a pilot project in the emergency departments of two Vermont hospitals (Rutland Regional Medical Center and Northeastern Regional Vermont Hospital in St. Johnsbury) to provide electronic access to information about patients’ medications. With the program, Emergency Department staff can query a database to learn about a patient’s medication history.

• Active participation in the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (VAHHS), a statewide network of health systems that promotes collaboration among health care organizations, and works to influence political, economic, social and regulatory issues facing health care providers in the state – with the goal of improving the delivery of health care to Vermonters.