Women at work. Interview by Jill L. Sherer.
System redesign can work--just ask the staff at Sentara Norfolk (VA) General Hospital's Women's Health Pavilion. In 1991, Sentara implemented a new patient-focused care delivery system and has garnered some very impressive results all around. After almost two years, baseline comparisons show per-case cost decreases for obstetrical services ranging from 0.2 percent to 26.3 percent. Reimbursement per case has increased 14 percent, and decreases in lengths of stay ranged from 1.1 percent to 8.4 percent. But cost savings weren't the only benefits measured. After only one year, employee satisfaction went up; so did patient satisfaction (which in some instances increased by as much as 11 percent). Laboratory turnaround times decreased on the average by about 30 minutes--some by as much as 64 minutes. So how did the folks at Sentara do it? H&HN staff editor Jill L. Sherer posed that question to Megan R. Perry, who, at the time of the patient-focused care redesign (officially completed in 1992), was director of the women's pavilion. Today, Perry is vice president at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
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Women's Health Pavilion, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, VA.
D017046:Cost Savings / Q000379:methods; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D005260:Female; D006754:Hospital Restructuring / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015285:Hospital-Patient Relations; D006801:Humans; D009096:Multi-Institutional Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D011590:Psychology, Industrial; D014768:Virginia; D014932:Women's Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*