1. System news for management to share with their employees
August 2015
System news for management to share with their employees
This is the first installment of Aspirus monthly management slides. Please be sure to share this information with your employees during your normal meetings and communications efforts.
Note that each slide contains speaking points in the Notes section, which will help guide your discussions. If you have questions or feedback, please contact Andy Napgezek, director of communications, at or

2. About this communication
Our surveys identified an opportunity
Monthly, consistent, system-wide
Important topics, develop understanding of high-level actions
Start the discussion
Pass along questions and suggestions
Hold each other accountable
You have likely heard that communication is one of the opportunities for improvement identified by our latest system-wide employee engagement survey. This is one of the tools Aspirus is employing to address that need.
-Every month, a short PowerPoint deck like this will be shared with all members of Aspirus management, who are then to use it as a discussion guide with employees.
-The topics discussed in these slides will help explain what we are doing strategically, and why it is important to each of us and the future of our system.
-This tool is a discussion guide for departments and teams, and is meant to generate conversation about where Aspirus is going, so we all understand how our own work supports system success and excellent patient care.
-Feedback is vital. If you have specific questions, pass them along to your manager so we can address them in future communications.
-We are all accountable for success. Everyone is expected to participate, and to understand. We are Aspirus.

3. This month’s topics Our Vision Our Strategy: Imperatives
Our Path Forward: One Focus, One Future
Measuring Success: System Pillar Scorecard
We can’t cover everything in depth, so we are starting with our ultimate goal and how we’re working together to get there.
As members of the Aspirus family, we all need to understand these topics. Why? Because everything we do should move us forward, bring us together, and ultimately improves our ability to help our patients and communities. It’s that simple.

4. Our Vision
To build a patient centered, physician partnered system that provides the highest quality care at the lowest cost to the communities we serve.
As Aspirus has grown, each individual entity has brought its own Mission and Vision to the system. While these guiding philosophies vary slightly, they all share several important elements that unite us.
Everything we do centers on our patients. They are our reason for being, and we are building our system of care around them.
NOTE: This is not just for those of us in patient care. Everyone in our system supports great patient care and an excellent patient experience. It is important to take pride in what we do, and to constantly seek ways to improve. Our patients depend on it!
We are strong partners, and recognize that we can do more as a system than we can as individuals. Together we are building a system of care that will be unrivaled. We WANT people to choose Aspirus because we know they will receive the best care.
We hold ourselves to the highest standard of quality, constantly striving to improve. We need to know in our hearts that we are doing the best for those we serve. When you leave at the end of the day, or the end of your shift, be proud of the work you did, knowing that we are doing something great.
We are a vital resource and are intimately connected to the communities we serve, while functioning as a team. Remember that by pursuing this vision, we are creating a system that will chart its own path, and will be here for the longterm support of our families, friends and neighbors.

5. Our Strategy
To succeed, we are focusing our efforts in five key areas. They are our Strategic Imperatives.
Growth
Quality, Service and Operations Improvement
Accountable Care Platform
System Performance Optimization
Health Plan Capabilities
Health care is changing like mad. In order remain an independent system that can chart its own course for the future, we have identified five areas to focus our efforts.
Growth –Aspirus needs enough locations to conveniently provide care – all over our service area! We will continue to grow until we can offer our communities all the health care services they need, whether people are old or young, healthy or ill. That is the future of health care. By achieving this, we are providing our communities with a bright and healthy future, and we are providing each other with job security and professional growth opportunities.
Quality – No matter what your job is, you always look for ways to do it better. When we approach work this way, we will KNOW that our system is top notch, and that people are treated better here than anywhere else.
Accountable Care Platform – In the future, providers will be measured by how healthy their communities are. We are no longer in the business of sick care, we are truly building a health care system. We are focusing on wellness and prevention, as well as restoring people to health and helping them avoid future problems. There is real pride in knowing that our efforts are making our communities healthier and giving people a higher quality of life. That’s what Accountable Care is all about.
System Performance Optimization – This is a fancy term for efficiency. We are streamlining, working together and making sure that we don’t miss a beat when we’re caring for someone who’s chosen Aspirus. Whatever we do, we have the opportunity to learn from each other, try out new processes and grow in our work. As a team, this helps us make every patient experience clearer and friendlier.
Health Plan Capabilities – We need to expand our system to include the insurance element. Why? Because then we can make sure that everyone in our service area is able to choose us, so we can give them the best care. We already offer the Aspirus Arise insurance product along with WPS Health Insurance Co., and we will be doing more in the future.

6. Our Path Forward One Focus, One Future
You should have heard of the One Focus, One Future initiative many times. Hopefully, you’re already familiar with its three key initiatives. They really are the Aspirus formula for success:
Empower: We will have thousands of people with the understanding and tools to drive improvement. Success can’t be achieved by people in a board room. You have to drive it, by getting involved and pushing change and improvement for our patients.
Unite: We will work together across the system, planning and working as one Aspirus for the benefit of our communities. As a team, we are going to do amazing things, so stay informed, get involved, connect and collaborate to give our patients the best experience.
Care: The focus of all that we do is to provide the absolute best care, making our communities as healthy as they can be. It is an honor to do what we do.

7. Measuring Success: Pillar Scorecard
All Aspirus entities now measure five focus areas to monitor our system strength and progress. These “Pillars” include:
Quality: Providing the right care, at the right time, in the right place with the best patient outcomes.
Service: Compassion for people through the delivery of exceptional services that exceed the needs, wants and aspirations of our customers.
People: Aspirus attracts, engages and empowers great people to work together in a safe and healthy environment to provide excellent care to all we serve.
Growth: Empowering employees to ensure that Aspirus grows and is the provider of choice in all communities we serve.
Finance: Maintain strong financial performance to support our strategic plan and mission.
This is how we know if we’re winning, if we’re doing the things we need to do to give our patients the care they deserve.
Our leadership team created a Pillar Scorecard, with five key elements, or “Pillars:”
Quality
Service
People
Growth
Finance
This scorecard is reported monthly, for the entire system and for each entity. You should look at this report, to monitor how we are doing in our efforts to build the best resource for our patients and communities. When your leaders talk about local projects and initiatives, you should understand how they support our progress in these pillars.

8. July Scorecard Copy and paste the link below into your browser
Here is the latest scorecard for our business unit. Aspirus will be adding this information to all its Intranet sites, and we’re going to view our latest results every month.
DISCUSS: How are we doing? What are we working on right here to improve these scores?
What else should we be doing?
We will relentlessly pursue our targets/goals for each of these pillars, because they all relate directly to our ability to provide the best care to our communities.
Copy and paste the link below into your browser
to view full scorecard