Bill Klaproth (Host):   Tidelands Health has a commitment to quality and service.  Here tell us more is Dr. Desmond Young. He is board certified in pulmonary medicine and the chief quality officer of Tidelands Health system. Dr. Young, thank you so much for being here. Very interested to hear what you have to say on this topic. So, could you start right off the top? What is healthcare quality?

Dr. Desmond Young (Guest):  Well, first off, thanks for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. The way we look at healthcare quality has sort of changed over time. Healthcare quality is no longer just measured in good outcome. It is measured in care, that is safe, effective, it’s efficient, it’s timely, it’s equitable and probably most importantly that we may have overlooked in the past, that it is patient and family centered.

Bill:   Well, it seems like all of those all intertwine to make a great patient experience and why are quality measures important?

Dr. Young:  Quality measures, of course, are looked at from every kind of organization that you see in the news and on the web. The national quality forum has formally endorsed over 400 different individual measures. Most of these are used by payers like PMS, Blue Cross/Blue Shield. They compare hospitals and they determine payments, either increasing or decreasing to hospitals based on performance. These type of quality measures include infection rate, complications of care, hospital acquired conditions, readmission, patient and family satisfaction, employee satisfaction. These are all measures predominantly reported just for hospitals but, eventually, they are going to be used to compare physicians for the public.

Bill:   Yes. I would imagine most healthcare institutions care about quality and patient satisfaction, so how can I compare the quality of Tidelands to other hospitals?

Dr. Young:  There are a variety of ways to reach out and compare hospitals to Tidelands’ hospital system, particularly on the internet. There are sites such as Hospital Compare, Health Grade, Leapfrog, Consumer Reports, US News and World Report. These sites use similar data and measures to compare hospitals. They all have their own little variability that they measure.

Bill:   Okay. Speaking of people measuring the hospital, you have been recognized many times, you have won dozens of quality awards. Can you tell us just about a couple of those awards and maybe which one you are most proud of?

Dr. Young:  Well, certainly, Tidelands Healthcare Systems has a variety of awards and I would direct the public to tidelandshealth.org to go over the link that you list.  A few of the ones that we’re very proud of is that we are named one of the nation’s top hospitals by the Leapfrog group. We we’re actually the only one on South Carolina. We’ve been awarded Pathway to Excellence for both our facilities from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. We are number one in South Carolina for excellence in women’s health by CareChex. Healthgrades, which is a large rating healthcare system rates us as one of the best hospitals in orthopedic surgery and prostate surgery. We’ve had multiple awards for orthopedic excellence. We are named one of the top hospitals for orthopedic services in 2015. They rate people on a star-type of program. We have 5-star recipients, which is the highest award that you can get for both knee, hip, gallbladder surgery, spinal fusion surgery, heart attack treatment, COPD treatment and the list goes on and  on from there.

Bill:   Well, those are very important distinctions. Thanks for sharing those with us. So, why is it such a priority for you to be a leader in this area?

Dr. Young:  I think being a leader in quality ensures our patient’s safety and satisfaction. We, at Tidelands, take great pride in the quality and safety of our practice for our patients and our community. We have a board on quality that oversees all our quality and safety initiatives within our healthcare system. We’re proud that our committee is made up of all kinds of members. It is made up of our board of trustees, from our hospital system, the medical staff, nursing, administration has a great feedback and participation in our board on quality. In addition, we allow the community to get involved and we have several community members that are standing members on our quality team. I would also like to point out that the healthcare quality and safety, even though we’ve set the goal from the board of quality, that it is the responsibility of every one--the patient and everyone involved in the care of the patient.

Bill:   So, who oversees Tidelands quality and patient safety programs?

Dr. Young:  Well, I’ve been honored by the hospital system and administration staff to allow me to work in the Chief Quality Officer position. I hold hands with several other people, including nursing, administration, community members, the Board on Quality. That’s the type of people who make up the Board on Quality including members of our Board of Trustees.  That’s who sets the standards for our quality and safety measures at our hospital system.

Bill:   Dr. Young, what advice do you have for patients when they are looking for a quality hospital system?

Dr. Young:  Well, I think it’s important to realize that there are some situations where traveling to a tertiary center or more specialized center that perhaps deals in high volume, specialized procedures or treatments makes sense. But, for most of the care of patients in our community, you could receive at Tidelands Health Hospital. As a matter of fact, it might be more ideal than traveling to a larger institution. As you can see from all our awards, we are very capable of handling almost any condition that a patient has. There’s better family support system, from your friends and family locally and you can obtain objective criteria on the overall performance and specific procedures and physician attributes on several websites, not only on Medicare’s Hospital Compare but there’s also some physician compare websites.

Bill:   Tidelands has a commitment to quality and service as you’ve been telling us. I know that starts with a singular commitment, better health begins here. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Dr. Young:  Well, we think that the basis for health starts at home, starts with family, starts with the primary care doctor. We’ve incorporated a community care network to integrate into the hospital system. We feel that working with our out-patient physicians in our hospital system and coordinated care both in the in-patient and out-patient setting makes a big difference. We want our community be healthy. A healthy community is a healthy environment. We care about the safety and quality of our care that we give our patients and the safety and care starts with us. It starts with our board on quality and it starts with our employees and we extend that experience to share with our patients and our community.

Bill:   You know, in a lot of organizations, you hear them saying, “We are the service leaders. We care about you.”  It’s easy to say that message at the top. It doesn’t really filter down and there are many moving parts to any large company. You’re just talking about your message, “Better health begins here”. How do you filter that message to all employees at Tidelands so that they all have that message and each touch point of the patient journey, they’re getting the type of care and quality that you’re looking for?

Dr. Young:  We have, weekly, if not daily, meetings on service, quality and safety. We meet every day to have any employee, any patient, any family member able to express openly, freely, and even unbiased to give their opinion and give recommendation for care. We are transparent and open about our quality and safety measures that we perform. We are always self-patrolling ourselves for different issues and problems that arise. We are constantly trying to better ourselves for our patients.

Bill:   Well, that’s a terrific message of empowering your employees and then they buy in and you really do get that communication loop, which is so important in any large company, any business, big or small. I applaud you for that. Dr. Young, I want to thank you once again for your time. If you could wrap this up for us, and we’ve already discovered many reasons why, but if you could tie this all up, why should patients come to Tidelands for their healthcare?

Dr. Young:  We strive for excellence, quality and patient safety. Through the workings with administration, our employees, the community, our patients and our patient’s family, we are creating a patient-friendly, family-orientated care of individuals. We care for people just like they are our own family and we really do believe that. We are going to give them the best care that any health facility can provide.

Bill:   That’s fantastic. We appreciate that. Thank you so much for talking to us today. It is very interesting to learn about this and your commitment to quality and service. For more information about Tidelands Health physicians’ services and facilities, visit tidelandshealth.org. That’s tidelandshealth.org. This is BetterHealth Radio. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.