I had the priviledge and honor of participating in a Craniofacial Continual Performance Improvement (CPI) workshop. Each year, the hospital chooses 2 departments to go through this workshop using the Toyota method and 2 parents are included as full participating members. Ashley Peters, Ethan's social worker put my name on the list as a potential participant and that list was given to the Family Centered Care department which includes the two ladies i've been working with for parent advisor stuff, Carol Parry and Jenny Calhoun. Carol came to visit Ethan during his September hospital stay after his surgery and asked me if I would be willing to participte. I accepted and was very excited to do it.
The meeting was held at the Roosevelt campus on a Monday all day and then the following Tuesday until lunch time. I found out the day before the event that the other participating parent was Michelle Short whom I had met over the summer who's son also is named Ethan and has CFM. We were excited to learn about this and I think it eased both of us a little knowing that we would know the other parent.
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| Bay Sitler (L) one of Ethan's nurses and SheriLynn Grote (R) Ethan's scheduler who has been such a life saver |
It was a little intimidating walking into the room for the first time with all those staff members. I didn't know most of them, but I did recognize Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Hopper. Dr. Perkins, and ENT and colleague of Dr. Sie was there too. Dr. Perkins snipped Ethan's frenulum (the skin under his tongue) since Dr. Sie was not available during one of his early surgeries. They were the sponsoring staff members and though I knew that they wanted us to give honest feedback, I had talked to Carol the week before about giving negative feedback even if it included people in the room. She made me feel better about that. Then to open the meeting, we had already been greeted by the two doctors and Dr. Hopper introduced us to the staff which included doctors, administrative people, schedulers, nurses, insurance people, people from other departments that work with Craniofacial and there was even the vice president who was in charge of the clinic. Dr. Hopper announced that they were not looking for kudos during this workshop, but were looking for feedback on what needs to be improved. That was like my ticket to go ahead and share my true feelings. I was completely comfortable after that moment.
We did work as a whole group and as small groups. There was about 20 people there. There was an overview of how the couple of days would work and what the goal was. Then Michelle and I got a chance to share about our children and about our clinic and hospital experiences. From our comments, the team came up with several things that needed improvement both in clinic visits and during surgeries and hospital stays. We also broke up into 3 groups. I ended up in Dr. Cunningham's group which also included SheryLynn and Bay. Each group came up with flow charts and lists or problems and ways to improve throughout the workshop. One of the flow charts was what happens from the time of first visit to Children's through clinics, preops, surgery, and finally discharge. We would start as a big group, talk, come up with a goal for a session, break into small groups, work on the goal or topic, get back together as a big group, share out to the big group on what was worked on in small groups and do it all over again with breaks and a lunch in there. Lunch was provided.
I was a fully involved and functioning member of the group and though still a little intimidating, I really felt like my opinions and feedback were being valued. Dr. Cunningham or others would even ask me from time to time how I felt about something.
On the second day, Michelle and I were going to leave at lunch. We ended up being asked to stay the rest of the day to finish up the workshop. It was wonderful. When the moderators announced that Michelle and I were going to stay for the rest of the workshop, everyone clapped.
At the end of the session, everyone got together and talked about the culmination of all of the work we had done. The last part of the CPI workshop would be a visit from hospital administrators and vice presidents who would come and hear about what we accomplished during the last two days. As we were going through the presentation schedule, the moderators said that someone would need to get up and talk about what was shared by the families. Then she told the group that they had a rare opportunity to have parents share this part to the administration and asked if we would be willing to share. Of course we couldn't say no. Everyone was really encouraging. Michelle and I got a half hour to play out what we were going to say. I would talk about what currently happens at the clinic and hospital from a family perspective and she would share about what we hope to experience by the end of the 5 years from a family perspective. We both helped eachother come up with bullet points and staff kept coming up and checking in on us to see if we needed any help. We ran our speeches by some of the staff and they were very positive about what we had come up with. I sat next to Dr. Cunningham every time we sat in a big group both days and he was always leaning over to me to explain any terminology I might not understand, which was helpful and he was also very encouraging while we prepared for our presentations. I was all of a sudden really nervous, but realized what a wonderful opportunity this was and that this was probably my one and only chance to share with hospital adminstration about our experiences at Seattle Children's.
I would be the first parent to present and when it came to be my turn, I got excited. I started off by greeting everyone, thanking them for letting me present, and then telling them how wonderful the Craniofacial department was. Then I said that there was need for improvement, however, and here are some things we currently experience. The biggest problems I presented were wait times in clinic between doctors, the long discharge process and pharmacy backlog, and how many times parents have to retell stories to different people. I got a laugh from the administrators when I told them that sometimes we felt like we were being held hostage in the clinic because we would need to use the restroom or get food but we didn't want to leave the room in fear that we would miss the doctor since we never knew when the next provider would come. I felt like my presentation went really well. At the end, the administrators were asked to share what they had learned about our work and one of them thanked me for my humor in presenting. Several others thank us for partipating and giving of our time and a couple came over and thanked us in person. Everyone seemed happy about the presentation and many of them came over and thanked me too. It felt so good. What an opportunity. I rode on cloud nine the rest of the week practically.
The goals we ended up developing were 5 year goals and would slowly be implemented over those 5 years. I am so excited to see these improvements implemented over the next few years, especially knowing that I had a hand in them. What an honor and priviledge to take part in this event! Dr. Hopper handed us a thank you cards signed by all the staff there and I was continually thanked throughout the event. The highlight was definately getting the once in a lifetime opportunity to present to the hospital administration. I hope I made an impression on them and was able to get my points across intelligently and succinctly.
-Dina
