The administration of Mercy Memorial Hospital System announced today that the health care organization had earned a position on the Detroit Free Press Top Workplaces Award list for 2011. Mercy Memorial is among 100 small, medium and large businesses named to the list.
“I am very proud of the transformation of our health care system,” stated Annette Phillips, FACHE, president and chief executive officer of Mercy Memorial Hospital System. “We have been on a very fast pace of change focused on excelling in quality, safety and service. Reaching these high levels of performance could not be possible without the staff’s commitment to excellence and their compassion for our patients. I could not be more proud of the MMHS staff and the outstanding care we are providing to the community.”
To qualify for this award, businesses must be nominated for consideration and have a minimum of 50 employees. Workplace Dynamics of Exton, Penn., acts as the objective third party, reviewing the company profiles, conducting an online survey of the organizations’ randomly selected employees and tabulating the results and reports. The participating companies cannot influence their employees to complete the survey or how to answer the questions and are disqualified from the survey if they do so. Mercy Memorial’s human resources department announced the health care system had been nominated to participate and employees could expect to see a survey in the inbox of their work e-mail.
Approximately 63 percent of Mercy Memorial’s 1300+ employees responded to the survey.
“Our employees are the heartbeat of our hospital system and our community,” said Maureen Henson, SPHR, vice president of human resources at Mercy Memorial. “Their commitment, pride and opinions are very important to sustaining and constantly improving the health care delivery to our patients and their families. Annually we engage in a house-wide survey as well as periodic pulse surveys to hear their successes, ideas and issues. We have several teams engaged in ongoing feedback – our President’s Employee Sensing Meetings, our Employee Advisory Group of opinion leaders, follow-up with new hires during their on-boarding process, employee focus groups – just a few of the ways we continually seek out our employees’ ideas for action.”
Employees react to a set of questions about their impressions of the workplace. Survey topics range from employees’ impressions of the company’s vision and progress to pay and benefits packages and everything in between.
Results are tabulated and the participating companies are divided into three categories: less than 150 employees, 150 to 499 employees and 500 or more employees. Rankings are based on the employees’ feedback and survey responses. Participants in the Detroit Free Press Top Workplaces Program represent all disciplines of business and industry from across the State of Michigan including manufacturing, financial, legal, information technology, logistics and health care. In 2011, the Top Workplaces Program will run in 24 major regions throughout the United States.
Mercy Memorial Hospital System has been on a fast-paced implementation schedule of its strategic plan to excel at quality, safety and service to patients. Only a few years ago the independent health care system was losing millions of dollars. Mercy Memorial made a $17 million turnaround in the past three years, realizing an increase in its Standard & Poors bond ratings over the past two years. Mercy Memorial also implemented multiple quality and safety initiatives, focused on evidence-based clinical practices and patient satisfaction. The health care system recently completed a $50 million renovation and expansion of its main hospital campus and a $330,000 upgrade at its Nursing Center. In 2010, it purchased a da Vinci Robotic Surgical System and earned accreditation from the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer for its cancer treatment program. Mercy Memorial entered into a joint venture agreement with Karmanos Cancer Institute and ProMedica and opened a comprehensive cancer treatment center in 2011. It has been successful in recruiting specialists to its service area to provide expanded neurosurgical, general surgical and orthopedic services. The Michigan Healthcare and Hospital Association recognized Mercy Memorial in 2011 for treating intensive care patients for five years without experiencing a case of ventilator acquired pneumonia, placing it in the top 1 percent in the nation. In November of this year, a team of its obstetrical nurses and physicians will travel to Maryland to participate in a National Quality and Safety clinical practice video for its work on Michigan Keystone patient safety initiatives. Mercy Memorial’s next major projects are the launch of a electronic medical record system in early 2012 and the construction of a cardiac catheterization and interventional radiology lab which is scheduled to open in Spring of 2012.