1. Quality Interview Stacey Odom Northside Hospital - Atlanta, Georgia Kristina Hanson ETM 591 - Spring 2014

2. Hospital Mission “Northside Hospital is committed to the health and wellness of our community. As such, we dedicate ourselves to being a center of excellence in providing high-quality health care. We pledge compassionate support, personal guidance and uncompromising standards to our patients in their journeys toward health of body and mind. To ensure innovative and unsurpassed care for our patients, we are dedicated to maintaining our position as regional leaders in select medical specialties. And to enhance the wellness of our community, we commit ourselves to providing a diverse array of educational and outreach programs.”

3. Hospital Values “Northside’s outstanding reputation in its industry is fueled by an instinctive devotion to a unique set of values. This statement of values defines and communicates those guiding, motivating philosophies that have led us to distinction: Excellence Compassion Community Service Teamwork Progress and Innovation”

4. About Stacey Odom Position: Productivity Management Engineer o Serves as a technical advisor and internal consultant to all hospital management and staff on the use of productivity management tools and techniques, analytical techniques, and statistical applications. o Recommends staffing levels and skill mix distribution based on developed standards and comparative information, as appropriate.

5. Interview Method/Completion Interview was completed via email through Dr. Burtner as a mediator I received completed responses on April 30, 2014 Authorization Do you give Dr. Burtner permission to publish your interview responses on her course website? Yes

6. Interview Q & A How do you train/educate your employees concerning process improvement/flow techniques? o When executing process improvement/flow techniques, most employees are trained through lean principles. There are several different resources online that have been used to train managers and lean team members.

7. Interview Q & A Do you ever encounter professionals who are resistant to participation in process improvement/flow activities? o Yes. You will always encounter a few employees that are resistant to change. They are not necessarily resistant to participation, but they do not always see the importance of it because they have not seen the improvements yet. Resistance is one of leans biggest obstacles.

8. Interview Q & A Would you please describe one of your most successful process improvement/flow projects? What metrics did you use to evaluation the effectiveness of the project? o We are currently working on a flow project that will potentially have a huge impact of the surgical unit. The project is focused around total joint replacement patients (knee and hip), where the lean team created process maps for each area of the process. We are using total cost and total man hour labor to evaluate effectiveness of action items.

9. Interview Q & A How have the new government regulations relating to health care (eg ACA) impacted the way you and your colleagues approach process improvement activities? o We have honestly not felt a huge impact from the ACA. Process Improvement projects have not changed their focus from the new Act. How have the new government regulations relating to health care (eg ACA) impacted your staffing models? o Staffing models have not been affected from the ACA, either. We create very detailed budgets for each department here at Northside, that base employees off of volume collected. Employees flex with the volume on a biweekly and monthly basis.

10. Interview Q & A What hospital do you use as a benchmark to compare your performance measures? o We are involved with a system that compares several hospitals. We input specific data for Northside that compares us to several other hospitals that use the same system.

11. Recognition Consistently has been voted Atlanta's "Most Preferred Hospital for All Healthcare Needs" Specific areas where Northside consistently ranks #1 with metro Atlanta consumers include: Inpatient Stay Most Personalized Care Imaging Best Nurses Maternity/OB Best Accommodations/Amenities Women's/GYN Hospital Advertising Recall Outpatient Surgery

12. Questions? Thank you!