Member News Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 16, 2010
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
call 217-366-1200, or visit www.christieclinic.com
Christie Clinic and Provena Covenant Medical Center Join Prestigious Healthcare Network
From Provena Covenant Medical Center in Champaign
Christie Clinic and Provena Covenant Medical Center have recently been named members of the Healthcare Value Leaders Network.
“The Healthcare Value Leaders Network is very pleased to have Christie Clinic and Provena Covenant Medical Center join the organizations in North America that are on a continuous improvement journey. Both organizations are using a proven methodology to improve patient care and reduce cost,” said Nancy Gurnee, director ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value.
The Networks are designed to engage medical professionals in learning how to improve healthcare by applying lean principles of continuous improvement and process redesign. Such techniques produced remarkable quality and productivity improvements for North American manufacturers over the last 30 years. Some of the areas that will be of primary focus to the Network are:
- Improve safety, quality, and efficiency in the delivery of care.
- Document best practices for lean transformations.
- Create a common definition of value in healthcare.
- Create common measures for performance comparison.
“The immense challenges that our society faces call for a new approach. Christie Clinic has seen the need to dramatically change the formula of the way high-quality healthcare could be delivered to the patient more efficiently,” said R. Alan Gleghorn, Christie Clinic Chief Executive Officer. “Our involvement with the Healthcare Value Leaders Network will benefit us by sharing information with like-minded organizations.”
“Provena Covenant Medical Center is proud to be a leader in the lean principles of continuous improvement and process redesign revolution in the healthcare industry and glad to be part of such an elite group who share these goals. The results of our efforts to date have been improved patient satisfaction and increased productivity,” said David Bertauski, Provena Covenant Medical Center President and Chief Executive Officer.
“Christie Clinic has been implementing lean process improvement for a few years now. The lean tools are the foundation for us to build a culture that empowers our team members to see and eliminate waste. For example, shorter wait times, fewer steps, and tighter connections allow us to deliver measurable results to our patients, the customers at the heart of it all,” said Jason Hirsbrunner, Christie Clinic Continuous Improvement Director.
The Christie Clinic team introduced Provena management to lean principles, and now Provena has fully embraced the process. In fact, Provena’s Blessed Beginnings Birthing Center is being modernized and redesigned using lean principles. Past birthing center patients and teams of staff members have collaborated to design the overall layout and each of the spaces within the unit. While keeping the family experience in mind, they have evaluated their workflow for delivering high quality care by using principles such as “point-of-use storage,” which makes sure the right items are on hand at the right time throughout all stages of the childbirth experience.
“In addition to the work in Blessed Beginnings Birthing Center, we have been focusing much of our efforts on organizing and refreshing clinical areas within the hospital. Many of our staff and physicians provide care in multiple areas. Therefore, we have put critical items in the same place in each clinical area, which reduces time wasted on searching for items and results in more time at the bedside and increased satisfaction for both the provider and the patient,” said Angela Swendsen, Provena Covenant Medical Center Continuous Process Improvement Director.
In an effort to enhance their respective lean journeys, representatives from both Christie and Provena visited ThedaCare, Inc. in Appleton, WI, one of the leading advocates of lean healthcare. The recent book On the Mend, by Dr. John Toussaint (founder and organizer of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value), chronicles ThedaCare, Inc.’s lean journey.
Formed by the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) and the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, the second Healthcare Value Leaders Network builds on the initial Network that started in June 2009. The first Network included such organizations as Johns Hopkins Medicine, UCLA Health System, and the University of Michigan Health System.
The organizations forming the second Network are:
- Akron Children’s Hospital, Akron, OH
- Alberta Health Services, Edmonton, Alberta
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA
- BJC Healthcare, St. Louis, MO
- Christie Clinic, Champaign, IL
- Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, Boston, MA
- Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA
- Provena Covenant Medical Center, Urbana, IL
- Seattle Children’s Hospital, Seattle, WA
- St. Joseph Health System, Orange, CA
Christie Clinic has provided health care to the residents of central Illinois for 80 years. It is the oldest multi-specialty medical group practice in central Illinois. Christie Clinic has clinics on University Avenue, Windsor Road, Gregory Street, and Fox Drive in Champaign; the Christie Clinic Cancer Center and CU Sleep in Champaign; satellite clinics in Arthur, Danville, Mahomet, Rantoul, Tuscola, and Urbana; and Convenient Care at Christie on Windsor (Champaign), Christie in Urbana, and in County Market on Kirby & Duncan and on Fourth & Springfield in Champaign. For more information about Christie Clinic, please call 217-366-1200, or visit www.christieclinic.com.
Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana, Illinois, is a Catholic faith-based hospital, where a tradition of clinical excellence and service to others come together to create powerful healing. A licensed 210-bed regional hospital serving 13 counties, Provena Covenant is one of east central Illinois' most advanced medical facilities offering a full scope of inpatient and outpatient care. For more information, visit www.provena.org/covenant.
