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 Message
From Our CEO,
Charles McLister
Since joining
Fairmount Behavioral Health System last October, I have been
welcomed by my colleagues and have witnessed exceptional behavioral
health care, making my arrival an extremely rewarding experience. I
am grateful to all of our stakeholders, especially the employees,
for receiving me with such kindness and cooperation.
Thus far in 2010, our employees and patients have seen many changes
and a number of significant improvements. By both internal and
external measures, we are delivering on our promise to be more
accessible, more accountable, highly transparent, and exceptionally
organized. Internally, 2010 is on track to be a record year for
patient admissions. In fact, this year, we have treated more
child/adolescent and chemically dependent patients than ever before.
Operationally, our monthly performance indicators tell us that many
of our key patient safety indicators, such as the use of emergency
restraint, the employment of safe staffing levels, and the number of
patient crisis episodes, are showing extremely favorable results.
Furthermore, we have successfully reorganized our management
structure, thus empowering our leaders. We have required and
achieved a high degree of managerial presence, especially on
evenings and weekends. All of the measures and initiatives are
producing a more successful stay for our patients and a better
workplace for our employees.
Externally, the hospital has completed a number of successful audits
and surveys, including examinations by payers, licensing officials,
and accreditation bodies. In May, we underwent two simultaneous
three-year surveys: both The Joint Commission and the Center for
Medicare/Medicaid Services (CMS) visited us in the same week. In
both cases, we had highly successful reviews. In fact, after
speaking with our staff and patients and observing our services, our
surveyors noted that we “far exceeded the standard for active
patient care,” and that our employees and physicians were
“maintaining the excellent tradition of Philadelphia medicine.” In
short, we received full Joint Commission accreditation and full CMS
certification and our staff should be proud of this external
affirmation of their service.
We have many great things planned for the second half of 2010, and
we are all excited to get under way. We are currently in our first
“Summer of Excellence,” a Service Excellence initiative designed to
improve our teamwork, our workplace pride, and to improve one of the
most important measures of our success, patient observations (our
goal is to be 100% compliant, regardless of the circumstances). Last
spring, we launched an improved employee orientation program, and to
follow that, this fall we will finalize our nursing and psychiatric
technician mentoring program. In addition, by the end of this year,
we will have expanded our child adolescent services by 32 beds, our
CD rehabilitation services by 22, and launch new detoxification
services for opiate users. Moreover, we also plan to renovate our
existing patient livings spaces (both in the adult and
child/adolescent acute units) and to update the environment in many
of the hospital’s common areas.
Finally, by the end of this year, we will re-visit our mission and
visions statements, so as to better focus on patient care and better
partner with our community. In addition, we will officially adopt a
set of principles and drivers that will guide our conduct, in both
good times and bad. These changes will help us to keep focused on
the right things: patient care, community partnership, and employee
engagement. I look forward to our future.
Hope is here.
Sincerely,
Charles S. Mclister
Chief Executive Officer
Fairmount Behavioral Health System |
