VC Notes - A weekly word from Dr. LouAnn Woodward
  VC Notes Archive Office of the Vice Chancellor
Friday, January 6, 2023

5 Questions

Good morning and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had an enjoyable New Year’s weekend, got a little down time during the holidays and ready to start off 2023 refreshed. I’m optimistic about this year and what’s in store for our Medical Center.

VC_Jan_06_BillboardLater this month, Nelson Weichold, chief financial officer, will be presenting the second of our new “UMMC 101” series, which is intended to give a little peek behind the curtain of how an academic medical center like ours is run. I encourage you to attend his session in the R153 auditorium from noon-1 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 30. The information he will present should be especially of interest for our many business and finances-focused employees across the Medical Center. Plus, free lunch for the first 75 people to arrive!

Molly Brasfield, chief human resources officer, presented earlier this month on “UMMC 101: Human Resources.”  We plan to continue and expand this series and welcome your feedback and suggestions for additional topics. 

Now, on to today’s column where I want to respond to some of the comments and questions you’ve sent to me through the VC Notes inbox. Just as a reminder, I read all of your questions and comments and enjoy hearing from you. I’m only able to respond to some of them in this space, but I pass the rest along to senior administrators for their review and possible follow up. You can submit your question or comment to the VC Notes inbox here.

—  —  —  

Q: Staff recognition continues to be a concern on the Press Ganey survey. Currently the only formal inpatient mechanism for patients/family to recognize staff on the floors are the Daisy Awards nomination boxes. This captures only licensed nursing staff and not the myriad of other staff who provide care: non licensed nursing, RT (although they do have a recognition program), pharmacy, dietary, housekeeping, OT/PT.

Please consider enhancing this program.

A:  Great suggestion. I connected with Molly Brasfield on this because she chairs our Awards and Recognition Committee. She also liked the idea of a nomination process that could include any patient care role since there are so many people who may have played a part in a patient or family feeling like they’ve had a great experience with us.

She’s invited Skye Stoker, director of the Office of Patient Experience, to be a committee member and that group will discuss ways to establish a patient care-worker recognition mechanism that can be available to patients and families. Since Daisy Awards are specific to nurses and that program is managed by our Nursing Services group, it’s best that a new process/form is developed for this new initiative rather than trying to merge them.

That committee meets regularly and this topic – and other areas and/or groups that could be considered for recognition, like students –  will be added to their agenda. Thanks for setting the wheels in motion for this.

And on this topic, the deadline for nominations of the AAMC awards found here is Jan. 13. I encourage you to go through these awards to determine if you or someone you know is deserving of consideration for these national awards.

—  —  — 

Q:  Can the UMMC Holidays for employees be posted on the intranet? This information is extremely difficult to find and affects outpatient appointments and clinician schedules, which are made up to 18 months in advance.

A:  Thank you for your suggestion. I’m guessing that your inquiry came right before some recent updates to the Intranet to make our official holidays more visible. Additionally, I presented your comment to our web strategy and development teams to find and implement other ways that this list can be found.

Here’s how to find the Medical Center’s holiday schedule:

These holidays will be updated annually when the holiday schedule is set.

—  —  —  

Q:  There is a tree with limbs that are blocking the "A" on garage A at the Alumni Drive entrance. We have patients who park there for procedures that check-in through the University Heart entrance, and we often get calls of them being lost or confused of where to go because they did not see the name of the garage. If the limbs could just be trimmed back a bit, I think that would be very helpful.

A:  Facilities Services has contracted with a vendor that will be coming to campus to clear these tree limbs and others that need to be cleaned up. Weather permitting, this activity should begin next week.

—  —  —  

Q:  I have a question, with BCBS not renewing the contract with UMMC why are we still using them as our insurance provider? They are the most expensive and don’t want to pay out.

A:  I’m really glad we are starting 2023 with a new agreement with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi and are again a fully participating network provider. The past several months have not been easy, especially on some of our patients, so I’m glad that is now behind us.

As for your question about going through Blue Cross for health insurance, BCBSMS’s role in the Mississippi State and School Employees Health Plan can be confusing. BCBSMS is not the carrier or underwriter of the state health plan. Instead, the plan is self-funded by the state of Mississippi and has nearly 200,000 members. This means that enrollees are insured by the state through the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration, the agency responsible for managing the plan. State health plan members – including UMMC faculty and staff who are enrolled – get their monthly premium deducted from their paycheck and it goes to DFA, not BCBSMS. DFA pays for claims but outsourced the administration of the plan to BCBSMS. This “third-party administrator” model is common for self-funded insurance plans. The decision for BCBSMS to be the state health plan’s administrator is one that is made through a legislative process, not by us.

—  —  — 

Q:  I am so glad about the police presence in the parking lot during shift change. My one and only concern is they are walking around in the darkness and aren’t easily identifiable. Would there be any way these officers on duty wear the traffic vests so we as employees are able to identify them as well as make sure we aren’t hitting them with our cars in the poor lighting of the parking lot?

A:  First off, your safety is a top priority and we are constantly looking at ways to improve the personal security of our facilities and grounds.

Through recent lighting improvements in the stadium and surrounding parking lots and increasing the number of uniformed officers in marked cars with lights on, there should be increased visibility of officers throughout the evening. Also, our bike patrol officers will wear new reflective vests to be more visible.

Also, UMMC Police, Facilities Services and the Center for Emergency Services are evaluating additional safety and security measures like metal detectors, more security cameras around campus, including some that automatically read car tags, and a new emergency alert system. You’ll hear more about these measures in the coming weeks.

—  —  — 

Q:  On numerous occasions recently the cafeteria has assumedly not been stocked with enough food for the advertised "late night special" due to the fact that they are completely out of the said special when they open at 11pm. Just this week on both Monday and Tuesday for Monday quesadillas and Tuesday for tacos the worker stated that there were none of the said food items available at 11pm just as they opened. While I understand that the refrigerated items will suffice at times it would be nice to be afforded the same special menu choices that the earlier shifts are privy to. Thanks so much!

A:  Thanks for sending this in. It’s important that our night-shift employees are able to get meals that meet their work schedule.

I presented this comment to Tracy Moore, system director with our food services vendor Morrison’s, who apologizes for any instance when a food item runs out and isn’t available. She says that they use a tracking system that helps them determine how much food to order and prepare based on historical and recent data to determine the right amount of food to prepare to reduce waste. They had decreased production of some items in response to lower sales, and she believes that demand picked back up faster than the cafeteria could ramp back up production. 

She says they are going to do better on having items available between that 7 p.m.-1 a.m. time frame, including the recently debuted soup and salad station for the late-night staff.

—  —  — 

Again, thanks for these and all of the submissions to the VC Notes inbox. I appreciate hearing from each of you.

Let’s get the new year started off in the right direction, headed toward our goal of A Healthier Mississippi.

Signed, Lou Ann Woodward, M.D.

Follow me on Twitter

Ask Dr. Woodward a question or make a comment and she may respond in her weekly column.  Your name is not required, but you may include it if you wish.