A Message from the President

Mather Scores a Triple Play

Spring, 2011

In baseball, a triple play is the rare act of scoring three outs during the same continuous play. At Mather, we recently experienced scoring our own triple play of sorts when a number of different survey reports revealed improvements in employee, physician and patient satisfaction.

In January, we received the results of our 2010 Cultural Excellence Inventory Survey which measures employee satisfaction with their work environment. Not only did our scores go up from the 2008 survey (3.59 compared to 3.25) but we did better than the 3.44 mean score of the 60 hospitals that make up the database.

In another survey of Mather nurses called the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators, job enjoyment was rated at 60.44 outpacing the average score of all hospitals in the NDNQI database (56.98).

Last fall we surveyed our physicians. Mather’s score for overall physician satisfaction with the hospital increased to 83.8% from 81.8% in the previous survey, a year earlier.

I am proud to report for the 4th quarter of 2010, our Press Ganey Patient Satisfaction score was 86.3 with a rank of 76% for NY community hospitals. To date, this is our highest score ever.

These survey results indicate that Mather Hospital has made significant progress toward its vision of becoming the best community hospital in New York State. I personally thank each employee, physician and volunteer who helped us to achieve this success.

Such significant advances are the result of the individual accomplishments of many working together. The following are just some of those achievements:

People

Keith Harris, DO, the founding director of our Intensivist Program and Chief of the Division of Critical Care, was named to the Long Island Business News 40 Under 40 Class of 2011. The award recognizes outstanding members of the Long Island community who are under the age of 40. In addition, Keith was named The Port Times Record 2010 Man of the Year in Medicine. Congrats Keith!

Liz Devine, RN, our Emergency Department Nursing Manager, was honored with the first Julie Cangro Award from the Suffolk County Emergency Nurses Association. The award is given to an Emergency Department RN from a Suffolk County Hospital who exhibits the criteria of leadership, integrity, nurturer, dedication, creativity and magnanimity. Liz has been with Mather since 1989. Thanks Liz!

Service

An integral part of our hospital family, our Auxiliary and Volunteers hosted a luncheon in December to recognize those who have achieved significant hours of service. In 2010, the volunteers donated more than 43,000 hours of their time to the hospital, our patients and staff.

The Food and Nutritional Services Department continues to improve the quality and variety of food offered to our patients, expanding lunch se lections and improving the presentation of meals. A newly implemented quality control procedure allows for the evaluation of sample meals for proper temperature, taste and appearance before they are delivered to the patients.

Quality & Safety

The Mather Hospital Bariatric Surgery Program and Dr. Arif Ahmad have again been jointly named a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). The Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence Award was first granted to Mather and Dr. Ahmad in 2007. Dr. Ahmad has also brought a pioneering new procedure for the treatment of acid reflux to Mather. Called incisionless surgery, you can learn more about it in this issue of Mather Matters.

Mather Hospital’s Laboratory again received accreditation from The Joint Commission and was awarded the Gold Seal of Approval for healthcare quality and safety. The inspection takes place every two years.

The development of the new clinical information sy stem, Sunrise Clinical Manager, continues to progress. This edition of Mather Matters profiles the 12 teams responsible for this monumental project. Employees will receive regular updates of the progress and benefits of this new sy stem through our Daily Line Up, Communication Boards, the Employee Forums and future issues of Mather Matters.

Innovation & Growth

Starting in January, twelve first-year medical students from Stony Brook University are now rounding at Mather Hospital. The program, under the supervision of Chief Medical Officer Joan Faro, MD, offers the students the opportunity to experience how medicine is practiced at a community hospital. The students are assigned to preceptors who are all members of Mather’s medical staff.

It was recently announced that we are moving ahead on acquiring two advanced technologies: a da Vinci Surgical Robot and the implementation of a Tele-Neurology Program. The da Vinci Robot will allow our surgeons to perform minimally invasive, advanced laparoscopic surgery. Telemedicine allows hospitals to offer a comprehensive range of timely services, in spite a shortage of physicians in certain specialties. Mather will join more than 120 hospitals nationwide, including Baptist Hospital and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, which use this advanced technology to access board certified, fellowship trained neurologists within 15 minutes. Every second counts when a patient is thought to be having a stroke. Receiving prompt diagnosis and treatment can mean the difference between recovery and permanent brain damage, or even death.

Again, I thank all of you for your dedication and cooperation. In the words of the quintessential baseball player Babe Ruth, “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.”