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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Mark H. Holtz, MS, CHE, Operations, Lehigh Valley Hospital, Route 78 and Cedar Crest, Allentown, PA 18104, 484 884 4710, mark.holtz@lvh.com, Brian K. Leader, MBA, Perioperative Services, Lehigh Valley Hospital, Cedar Crest and Route 78, Allentown, PA 18104, Linda Drexinger Durishin, RN, MSN, Organizational Development, Lehigh Valley Hospital, Cedar Crest and Route 78, Allentown, PA 18104, Louis L Liebhaber, MBA, Chief Operating Officer, Lehigh Valley Hospital, Cedar Crest and Route 78, Allentown, PA 18104, and Lawrence C. Kleinman, MD, MPH, Department of Community Health and Health Studies, Dept of Health Evaluation Sciences, and Dept of Maternal Child Health, Lehigh Valley Hospital, Penn State College of Medicine, and Harvard School of Public Health, Health Studies Unit, 6th Floor, 17th and Chew Streets, Allentown, PA 18104.
INTRODUCTION Recruitment and retention of nurses and other operating room (OR) personnel is a critical success factor for hospitals.
PURPOSE To compare employee satisfaction and turnover among OR personnel before and after the implementation of management innovations.
SETTING Lehigh Valley Hospital is a premier academic teaching hospital in Allentown, PA. The Cedar Crest campus has 585 of LVH’s 720 beds, is a level one trauma center and 88 % of its OR procedures are for inpatients.
METHODS Case study. From November 1999 - December 2000, the hospital implemented management innovations including: 1. Integration of all OR nurses, administrators, and support personnel into a single management unit separate from inpatient and outpatient nursing services; 2. Modest economic interventions designed to promote appropriate recognition of performance; 3. Enhanced opportunities for self-governance and staff development; and 4. Enhanced visibility of and communications by senior management. Outcomes data (employee satisfaction, turnover) were collected routinely.
RESULTS In 1999-2000, 18.1% of OR personnel resigned annually, representing an annual loss of 227 person-years of experience. In 2001, turnover was down to 8.0% representing 86.4 person-years. Employee satisfaction went from 57.8% to 93.8% of the hospital mean, and satisfaction with management style went from 47.3% to 99.1%. All comparisons p<.05.
CONCLUSION Management innovations can rapidly improve the functioning of complex and stressful clinical units such as an operating room. The negative impact of national trends can be mitigated by innovative management. Hospitals should consider managing special-purpose clinical units as individual entities, rather than by job type.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Leadership, Management
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employee of hospital that is discussed in this paper.