Last month, our senior leadership team held a series of town hall meetings to discuss strategic updates from FY18, provide insight for the new year, and highlight the incredible work that staff throughout PPMC have been doing to create a better experience for patients and colleagues alike.
FY18 was extremely busy and productive. We exceeded budget expectations, bolstered our reputation as a regional referral center, received numerous prestigious awards recognizing our staff’s outstanding work, and continued making progress on our operational imperatives – quality, access, experience, finance, and people. Multi-phase plans are in place to ramp up recruitment and expand our service lines, and we continue to improve patient progression by decreasing lengths of stay, increasing discharges before noon, and reducing unplanned 30-day readmissions. By the end of the year, we also hope to halve the number of patients who leave our ER before being seen.
FY18 by the Numbers:
- $792 million total operating revenue
- 249,845 outpatient visits
- 40,570 Emergency Department visits
- 356 PPMC employees participated in the tuition program
- 100+ days since last catheter-associated bloodstream infection
- 80 percent of patients would rate their experience a 9 or 10
- In the top 20 percent of mortality
- 6.75 percent turnover rate, compared to a national benchmark of 20 percent
As we prioritize patient- and family-centered care, a number of PPMC’s front-line nurses are driving research to improve patient outcomes, including a multidisciplinary team developing de-escalation and control management strategies to tackle violence and aggressive behavior in the ED, and a pilot program on 4 South helping vulnerable patients with multiple chronic conditions enroll in MyPennMedicine, reduce ED visits, and return to primary care physicians faster. We are also excited to introduce healthier beverage and vending machine options, provide free TV and on-demand programming for patients, and make strides to increase ambulatory access to different specialties, all to provide a better experience.
Looking ahead, PPMC has started developing plans for both a 1,500-space parking garage and a new Wellness and Relaxation Garden. Renovations will also continue for the Acute Care for Elders unit and the Heart & Vascular Pavilion, and we will be constructing a Radiation Oncology linear accelerator and cancer suite that will connect to the existing infusion program and have four additional ORs on the second floor. And that’s only the beginning.
At the core of all of our plans for expansion and growth are our people, and the importance of the empathy, enthusiasm, and dedication that each team and staff member brings to PPMC cannot be overstated. Thank you for making our successes possible and for helping the leadership identify areas of improvement and develop action plans to propel us forward.