Registrars who work night shifts in the emergency department and labor and delivery registration areas can’t attend staff meetings, which are held at 2 p.m., at New Orleans-based Ochsner Baptist Medical Center and Ochsner Medical Center-Kenner (LA). However, supervisors give the night shift staff members their own meeting at 10:30 p.m. or 6:30 a.m.
“They hear about updates, such as payer requirements, face-to-face, instead of just reading the information in an email,” says Shelita Russ, CHAM, director of patient access services.
At Cape Coral (FL) Hospital, access managers were disappointed with the typical turnout at monthly staff meetings. Only about 60% of employees attended. “Many off-shift employees had difficulty attending a meeting that was scheduled during the typical midday meeting hours,” explains Jamie Bruner, manager of registration services.
The department now has three meetings to cover every shift. First and second shift employees attend one of two 3 p.m. meetings, held on different days. “This hour is a good one because we have first- and second-shift employees overlapping during that time, so the department is still staffed,” says Bruner. The meeting for third-shift employees is held at 9:30 p.m. “We didn’t want our employees to lose the ability to network with one another from different shifts,” says Bruner.
All meetings are held on different days, so employees can attend another meeting if they were unable to attend their own shift meeting. “This adds to the flexibility for team members,” says Bruner. “If one day doesn’t work for them, perhaps another will.”
Managers review all of the same topics at each of the meetings. “We cover our process improvements, metrics, achievements, and goals,” says Bruner. “We do celebrations of each other’s successes and acknowledge important dates like birthdays.”
Patient access leaders attend all three meetings, which required shifting of their hours. “This gives employees an opportunity to see leaders that they would not normally see,” says Bruner. “We now have a 90% attendance rate. We consider this a big success.”
