The greatest challenges of a large hospital move point to the smallest of details. Ultimately, one cannot miss a heartbeat. After many years of planning, Sunday November 15th 2009 marked the anticipated move of El Camino Hospital-Mountain View (ECH) into its brand new home. Heralding to "The Hospital of Silicon Valley," this new 450,000 square foot hospital meets the state's new mandate for seismic safety standards and was built from the ground up. The new facility boasts the latest technology in imaging, including Fujitsu's Palm Secure scanning technology which allows patients to register via biometric palm scanning. The seamless transition occurred in the early morning, with the older facility closing the emergency department at 6:00 a.m. and the new emergency department opening at 6:00 a.m. The inpatient move started at 0700, and 119 patients were transferred to their new location. A hospital move is a carefully choreographed dance which requires several practice runs and key team leaders and hospital preparedness.
Kelly Guzman, Executive Director of Transition Planning and her team at Healthcare Technical Services (HTS) were selected to lead the transition process and guide the hospital towards a safe and successful move. Collaborating on their second hospital move this year, ECH and HTS celebrated a major milestone by successfully passing their licensing survey on the first C-DPH review. The HTS Transition Team worked with the ECH team to develop new workflow, policies and procedures to help them adapt to their new environment which includes new equipment and technology. The team worked steadily organizing training materials and orchestrating Day in the Life scenarios to prepare the staff for their new workspace and the licensing visit. HTS' own FreightTrain® SaaS software tools provided key visual references instrumental to the activation of the new hospital. These included Visual Fragnet® custom floor plans and graphical reports and FF&E Door Reports, detailed checklists of all required room contents.
Foreseeing issues that may arise when transferring all calls from one command center to the next is crucial in avoiding confusion or error, an outcome no hospital should bear. Close communication and in depth planning are two ways HTS prepares for these measures. Cheryl Reinking, the Incident Commander at ECH, used the HICS model and HTS staff played a key role by actively supporting the command center and deploying issues to the appropriate owner for two weeks prior to the move until three days after.
"It could not have gone more smoothly," said Ken Graham, CEO at the debriefing. "5 stars all the way around, for everybody." On the heels of winning an award for Clinical Excellence for its 5th year in a row and placing them in the top 5 percent of all hospitals in the country for overall clinical excellence, El Camino Hospital has a lot to look forward to in its new home.
To find out more information on how your company can beat deadlines and budget costs, please contact Alexandra Conn, aconn@consulthts.com, or visit our website www.freighttrain.com.
Contacts:
HTS
Alexandra Conn
310-443-0028
aconn@consulthts.com
