Schneck Medical Center

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
2011 Award Recipient, Health Care

Highest-Ranking Official*
Gary Meyer
President and Chief Executive Officer

Public Affairs Contact

*At time of award

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For more information
Schneck Medical Center
411 W. Tipton St.
Seymour, Ind. 47274
Baldrige phone number: 812-522-0594
baldrige [at] schneckmed.org (baldrige[at]schneckmed[dot]org)
http://schneckmed.org

Schneck Medical Center (SMC) is a 93-bed nonprofit hospital providing primary and specialized services to the residents of Jackson County, Ind., and surrounding communities. SMC offers a full spectrum of primary care services, with a current focus on women's health, joint replacement, noninvasive cardiac care, cancer care, and bariatric (weight loss) surgery. SMC provides most of its care at the center's main facility in Seymour, Ind., and has opened "convenient care clinics" in three adjacent counties to provide healthcare services locally. SMC's workforce numbers 800 employees, who are joined by 150 affiliated physicians, 300 volunteers, and more than 200 students. Net patient revenue for the center is $98.5 million.

Highlights

• Patient satisfaction surveys reflect SMC's year-to-year favorable performance, meeting or exceeding top 10 percent or top 25 percent levels on nine of 10 Press Ganey (a national consulting firm focused on improving health care performance) measures, including inpatient quality of care, inpatient family support, inpatient coordination of care, and inpatient customer service. On measures of ambulatory care, including timeliness, customer service, and ambulatory education, SMC's performance exceeds the top 25 percent level.
• SMC demonstrates excellence in measures of its operating margin, cash flow, and cash position, with its reported results comparing favorably to the Standard & Poor's (S&P) "A" and "AA" rated median levels. From 2008 to 2010, SMC's gross revenue results showed growth in the organization's strategic focus areas— women's health, joint replacement, noninvasive cardiac care, cancer care, and bariatric surgery.
• SMC has a strong commitment to its employees, volunteers, and physicians, as seen by the establishment, operation and continuous improvement of multiple workforce-focused programs, projects, and policies based on survey feedback from each group. For example, SMC's Hiring for Excellence Program involves peer interviewing and employee input for the selection of new staff members. SMC's rate of overall staff turnover decreased 25 percent from 2007 to 2011.
• Although primarily used for center staff development and onsite patient and family education, the SMC Simulation Lab, a training and assessment facility, is frequently shared with community nursing homes, the local Red Cross, clinical education centers and high schools, and local Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operations for their respective training needs.

High Performance Is the Rule

• SMC consistently demonstrates high levels of performance in relation to patient-focused health care measures. Specifically, on 17 of 22 core measures reported for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), SMC scored 100 percent in the second quarter of 2011.
• SMC ranked second among 94 hospitals in its geographic region and outperformed all local competitors when measured for its value-based purchasing (VBP). VBP is a method that holds health care providers accountable for the quality and cost of their services through a system of rewards and consequences. Incentives discourage inappropriate, unnecessary, and costly care.
• Patient satisfaction surveys reflect SMC's year-to-year favorable performance, meeting or exceeding top 10 percent or top 25 percent levels on nine of 10 Press Ganey (a national consulting firm focused on improving health care performance) measures, including inpatient quality of care, inpatient family support, inpatient coordination of care, and inpatient customer service. On measures of ambulatory care, including timeliness, customer service, and ambulatory education, SMC's performance exceeds the top 25 percent level.
• SMC's commitment to a "Patient First" culture has led to many innovative health care options. For example, to address its limited treatment options for myocardial infarctions, SMC and its largest competitor, located 25 miles away, created a collaborative initiative for coordinated handoffs of patients needing emergency cardiac catheterizations. Through this effort, "door-to-balloon" times (the critical period for assessing and diagnosing a heart attack and delivering the needed intervention) have been reduced from 120 to as low as 60 minutes, ensuring patients get the best and quickest treatment.
• SMC has achieved high performance levels in all areas measured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, with SMC outperforming its Indiana peers from 2008 to 2011 (year-to-date) in the areas related to the ability of nurses and physicians to listen, understand, and provide clear discharge instructions.
• SMC demonstrates role-model performance through its low overall rates of hospital-acquired infections, which have been maintained at or below 1 percent since 2008. There have been no occurrences of postoperative infections from bariatric surgeries, one of SMC's focus areas. No patient has acquired ventilator-associated pneumonia since 2009, while central line-associated bloodstream infections have remained at low numbers since 2008, with zero cases in 2011 (year-to-date).

Financial Wellness Yields Quality Health Care

• SMC demonstrates excellence in measures of its operating margin, cash flow, and cash position, with its reported results comparing favorably to the Standard & Poor's (S&P) "A-" and "AA" rated median levels. From 2008 to 2010, SMC's gross revenue results showed growth in the organization's strategic focus areas—women's health, joint replacement, noninvasive cardiac care, cancer care, and bariatric surgery.
• SMC's market share in Jackson County, the site of the organization's primary medical center, exceeds 60 percent for inpatient care, 70 percent for outpatient care, and 80 percent for ambulatory care. Additionally, SMC's market share in adjoining Jennings County reflects favorable performance with an increasing growth trend.
• SMC controls the costs of its work systems through daily and monthly monitoring, as well as annual reviews of performance measures in alignment with the fiscal and operations pillar in its "Run the Business" approach. This approach has resulted in an improved bond rating and improved operating margin, both of which had decreased during the 2009 national economic downturn. Currently, SMC exceeds S&P's "A-" rated benchmark for five significant financial metrics. 

An Empowered and Involved Workforce

• SMC has a strong commitment to its employees, volunteers, and physicians, as seen by the establishment, operation, and continuous improvement of multiple workforce-focused programs, projects, and policies based on survey feedback from each group. For example, SMC's Hiring for Excellence Program involves peer interviewing and employee input for the selection of new staff members. SMC's rate of overall staff turnover decreased 25 percent from 2007 to 2011.
• The satisfaction levels reported by SMC's registered nurses for the organization's leadership development programs have exceeded the benchmark of the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) for the past three years.
• SMC's Grow Our Own program for "culturing" physicians begins with opportunities for local students to shadow health care professionals during the middle and high school years and then work at SMC during college. This program has resulted in 17 new physicians joining SMC's staff. The Grow Our Own program is augmented by SMC's provision of tuition reimbursement for current and future employees and physicians.
• SMC improved its annual strategic planning process by expanding the Medical Executive Committee to include physicians in staffing decision making. As a result, 90 percent of SMC's physicians report that they are engaged and aligned with the organization. 

Good Neighbor, Good Citizen

• Although primarily used for center staff development and onsite patient and family education, the SMC Simulation Lab, a training and assessment facility, is frequently shared with community nursing homes, the local Red Cross, clinical education centers and high schools, and local Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operations for their respective training needs.
• SMC performs numerous health screenings at no charge to local residents and serves as a major source of health information through regularly scheduled educational programs and health fairs.
• SMC built its new cancer center based on a community needs assessment. In order to pay for the center, employees raised $250,000 through the Employee Partners Invested in Caring (EPiC) committee, and the community raised approximately $4 million through the SMC Foundation.

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