‘UPP’ and Running: Care Improvement Program Melds URMC’s Biggest Priorities

Just a month ago, Strong Memorial Hospital rolled out the “Unit-based Performance Program” (UPP), a major initiative that will—by braiding the three together—help inpatient units better coordinate their improvement efforts around 1) patient safety, 2) the ICARE experience, and 3) operational efficiency.

Scores Prove: Hospitalists Paving Way for Better Patient Experience

As chief of URMC’s Division of Hospital Medicine, Andrew Rudmann, M.D., and fellow hospitalists are looking to make the hospital more intelligible, and a little smaller. Their techniques—handing business cards to patients, calling home to “check up” after they’ve left— are certainly creative. More importantly, they’re working.

Job-Specific ICARE Behaviors Crystallize

We continue our zealous work delivering the “ICARE experience” to patients, families and each other.

In fact, over the past several months, we’ve taken significant steps, meeting with distinct job families (e.g., providers, ambulatory patient representatives, nurses, pharmacy techs) and carefully voting on sets of concrete, job-specific behaviors that, done consistently, will deliver an exceptional experience not only to our patients and families but to employees, as well.

In Search of Silence: Noise Reduction Efforts Afoot

Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” was extremely popular in the mid-1960s--in fact, the song was arguably one of the most iconic of its generation. Today, for hospitals across the country, the “sounds of silence” are just as momentous--they’re one of the figurative gold standards caregivers chase in the quest to achieve higher levels of patient satisfaction.

Leadership-Staff Retreat Offers Big-Picture Perspective

It was only 7:30 a.m., but the room was already pulsing with Black Eyed Peas’ ballad "I Gotta Feeling” as staff sipped coffee and scribbled down answers to trivia questions, eagerly awaiting the start of Strong Memorial’s first ever cross-disciplinary retreat with hospital leadership.