Wanted: Voices From The Field

• 3/5/2009
• Author: Janet Pimentel
• Category: The Source Blog
• 30884 Views
• 2 Comments
• 

Hello again. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted a new blog, but we’ve been making some Web site enhancements to better serve you.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking and it occurred to me that I’ve learned a lot from my peers over the last 20 years.

While working as a crime reporter for daily newspapers, my peers taught me how to get a stubborn police chief to comment on any case.

While working as an Internet Content Editor, my peers taught me how to keep my article listed high on a search engine. Or how to coordinate 56 freelance writers at one time to flood the Internet with articles on a specific topic.

As an editor at Joint Commission Resources, my peers have taught me how to successfully find interesting case studies on a regular basis.

As I was thinking of new features for The Joint Commission’s: The Source newsletter, it occurred to me that a lot more good ideas could be shared if readers were able to read comments from their peers. Thus, the Voices from the Field article was added to my newsletter planning list.

To test this idea, I e-mailed several accreditation managers at random Joint Commission―accredited organizations. I introduced myself as the new editor of The Source and explained my interest in starting Voices from the Field to include the readers’ perspective in the newsletter. I asked them a simple question: What does your organization do if the CEO is on vacation or out of the office when a Joint Commission surveyor shows up for an unannounced survey? I thought this was a practical question. CEOs can't be in the office all the time. They earn vacation time just like we do. They also could be offsite attending an all-day meeting or event.

Opal Reinbold, chief quality officer at Palomar Pomerado Health System in California, was one of the first to respond. “I think this is a great idea,” Opal wrote me. “Each of our administrators, whether it be a CEO, our nurse executives or in my case, the chief quality officer, is ready to step in and engage with The Joint Commission when they come to our campus. We feel strongly that we should all be prepared at any time to address these kind of issues and concerns and work hard to keep everyone up to speed on the key standards and issues that may be addressed. In addition, there is always a designated second if our COE is out of town or not available,” Opal added.

Another response came from Johnetta James, director of accreditation and patient safety at Duke University Medical Center. “If the CEO is on vacation or out of the office when The Joint Commission arrives to conduct an unannounced survey, our Executive or Associate Medical Director or our Chief Operating Officer will fill in versus contacting the CEO to come in for the survey,” Johnetta responded.

Their two responses were a great beginning, but I’d like to hear from more of you.

What does your organization do if the CEO is on vacation or out of the office when a surveyor arrives for an unannounced survey? If you are the CEO, you can add interesting insight to this answer about what works well for you and your organization.

Send me your answers. I will compile the best comments and publish them in a future issue of The Source. Watch for it!

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