DEM Faculty Meeting - Sept 2011

Announcements

• Goals from the Leadership Retreat are being sent out this Friday, September 9.
• Mark your calendar:  this Friday September 9 at noon in the Training Building there is the Faculty Development Seminar on promotion and tenure. Frank Walter will be the speaker. Specifically, he will address promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor.  Lunch will be served.  In the future, the Faculty Development Seminars will be on first Thursdays of every month at noon.

Clinical Updates, South Campus

• Sara Frost is new interim Administrator of the South Campus Hospital (previous known as UPHH).  Diane Rafferty is moving on as the consultant CEO.  Karen Mlawsky is the CEO of the UAHN Hospital Division, including South and University campus hospitals.    
• The opening of the new ED went relatively well and both census and acuity are up sharply. There were challenges with IT issues as there was no test before the opening.  For example, Cisco phones were installed that day and staff was not trained how to use them. 
• Dr. Shirazi reported there has been approval to staff more nurses because the extra waiting rooms have not been used and the ED was full. Therefore, the extra nurses will allow the ED to be fully staffed. The new CEO assures us that she will back this decision.
• The new ED has been running into issues of residents on the inpatient services capping so that ED admits are delayed in going to inpatient beds.   It was suggested this will continue as colder weather arrives and hospitalists will need to be hired.
• Emergisoft is still a work in progress. Operationally we are working to improve the discharge instruction and diagnosis selection process.  And we are working to get critical reports on length of stay and patients presenting per hour and per day. 
• The head of Radiology supports putting a new CT in the ED.  The new CEO supports putting a developer in the ED so we can get results from the portable Xray scanner. 
• The new CEO supports putting a pneumatic tube system in to send specimens to the lab.  The hospital will also add an i-stat hand held blood analyzer. 
• Dr. Shirazi is meeting with the medical director of Psychiatry, with a goal to have patients go from the CRC to the hospital and skip the ED.
• The CPSA has opened another LARK unit and they should take care of intoxicated people but have reached their cap, so are pushing people to the ED and CRC.  Dr. Shirazi reported the ED doctors are pushing back because of promises made that these patients would not be seen in the ED.

Recruitment Update

• Currently there are two candidates being interviewed for clinical series positions. These positions carry an expectation of minimal research, service, or classroom teaching responsibilities. The focus will be on excellence in clinical practice and clinical teaching.  Dr. Brian Drummond will interview this week and is Navy-trained. Next week, Dr. Ron Genova, a graduate of our residency program approximately twenty years ago, is interviewing.

Financial Updates

• The budget for this fiscal year has finally been approved and included the new faculty salary lines. It does not include previous clinical support funds from UPHH so a negative bottom line of $1.6 million has been approved. It has been repeatedly stated operating with a negative bottom line will not affect bonuses as long as we are within target.  We are accruing incentives at last year‚Äôs level throughout the year.
• Trauma funding has not been distributed yet. This trauma funding comes from Indian gaming. Since the economy is down less people are going to the casinos and therefore the funding has decreased. In the past there was a committee that decided how the funding was distributed and this year Dr. Peter Rhee is the only one making the decision.  Emergency Medicine will get $195K in trauma funds this year per Peter Rhee, slightly less than last year. 
• Last month the gross charges were $4.33 million and the target was $4.5 million. South Campus (UPHH) hit $1.4 million with the target being $1.3 million. The new corporation UAHN gave departments only 2 days notice that the cutoff date to submit charges was changing, and consequently we were not able to meet budget.
• RVU productivity will have a bigger role for incentives this fiscal year. A strong message from the Dean and UAHN is that the bonuses will have an RVU base. 

Medical Student Update

• There are 5 new students rotating this month. After December we should be full.
• If students are only interested in a Kino experience, that is possible. This needs to be known beforehand in order to get the proper paperwork filled out. If you know of a student that has this interest please have them contact Dr. Kathy Hiller.

Clinical Updates, University Campus (formerly known as UMC)

• University Campus is asking for help to increase patient satisfaction.
• Bonuses for next year could be tied in part to patient satisfaction scores (Press Ganey). For more information on this look at the August Clinical Affairs minutes (attached).
• Message we will bring forward to the hospital is that patients are leaving the system after we see them. We are trying to refer patients for follow-up care to UAHN practices but they have small capacity and small market share.  Improving access to the network is necessary and should be a top goal this year.
• Dr. Denninghoff suggested there should be a way we track patients and find out where they go after leaving the ED.  Dr. Keim suggested adding some questions to Michelle Ziemba‚Äôs ED Nursing call-back survey. This will allow us to start gathering data and see if patients try to get back into the UAHN.  
• Dr. Keim reported the potential reinstatement of the ‚ÄúGolden Ticket‚Äù, which guarantees a follow-up appointment at another clinical service at UAHN.  The patients that did not have a primary care doctor could be given an appointment to the clinics. The patient would have to call the clinic to confirm their appointment and would be given an exact time instead of a window of time.
• Any questions you have on access should be directed to Chief Medical Officer Dr. Andy Theodorou.

Research Updates

• In the future there needs to be time taken to discuss how the seed grant process is done, the amount of money expended, and how resources are used.
• There is a $1,000 AzCEP grant available for the residents. If you know a resident‚Äôs research project that needs the money then have them do a 4 page application and talk with Kurt Denninghoff. A note is being sent to all residents but we also need to inform them verbally. Since not many apply for this then there is a good chance of winning.
• Papers are starting to get accepted for publications so some faculty could be receiving calls from newspapers. The best thing to do is to refer the caller back to the first author.
• Kurt Denninghoff wants to thank Ash Panchal, Dan Spaite, and Frank Walter for their help with research.