Last week Wendy, our Planetree coordinator at the hospital, e-mailed to let me know we are no longer the only Planetree hospital in the State of Ohio. Cleveland Clinic is going to be a member hospital. Alliance Community joined Planetree in November 2002. Welcome aboard to our fellow health care Colleagues at the Clinic.
Yesterday was orientation for new Colleagues at the hospital. We were expecting 12 new staff members and when we needed extra chairs for the 15 that showed up we were ready to go. I always look forward to meeting with individuals that want to be a part of the ACH family. I get to talk about our culture (more of that in a minute) and I also get to hear how people heard about us and why they wanted to join our team. This morning’s comments were fairly typical, but very encouraging .One new staff member heard about what a great team we had in Pharmacy, another talked about comments they heard at church and being new in the Community checked us out and found what they liked, a third who had been here before talked about nursing and our strides we were making in patient safety.
Years ago I asked the Colleagues in our organization to help me write a book by creating real stories and special moments. I never did get to write that book, but over the years the Colleagues certainly have done their part. I have more stories to share about what helps us bring our mission and values to life everyday. Here are a few I shared at yesterday’s orientation.
“A young lady and her mother walked to the hospital for service; they live about 10 minutes away. They expected to be here about ½ hour for an outpatient procedure. After the procedure one of our staff members noticed the young lady crying and asked her mom how she could help. Mom went on to explain, the procedure went fine, but they didn’t realize it would take closer to an hour and a half from check in to check out. The problem was her daughter who had trained all year for the Special Olympics had just missed the school bus taking them to the event and they had no transport. Fortunately, another ACH staff member who knew exactly where the games were being held was introduced to mom and daughter and drove them the 30 minutes to the event. Several weeks later we received a nice note saying not only did she get there, but she also won a medal.
When we first joined Planetree there were a lot of questions from the staff. How could we do more for our patients than we were already doing? Wasn’t it going to cost a lot more money? For those of you interested in what a Planetree hospital is all about go to one of my favorite links www.Planetree.org and read the tribute to Laura Gilpin. Laura assisted with our first Planetree Colleague retreat and when she was asked the above questions she politely responded “How much more time does it take to be nice versus not nice” and went on to share example after example of how she practiced as a nurse. Laura, Planetree is alive and thriving. You will always be in our hearts.
Stan
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