Northfield Hospital

Source: Healthcare Digital

Date :5/8/2008 6:12:47 AM

“To enhance the quality of human life through the provision of exceptional healthcare services” - Exec learns how one organization has been working hard to turn that mission into reality

Written by Ben O’Hanlon and Produced by Kristin Hurley

Northfield Hospital is one of Minnesota’s newest and provides comprehensive care throughout the greater Northfield and Southern Dakota County. Its operations are run from a main hospital campus, which is also home to two medical clinics and a long-term care centre. They include emergency, surgical, chemotherapy, children’s therapy and home care facilities.

The organization has recently partnered with Mayo Health System, which supplies physician services to four new regional primary care clinics opened over the past three years. By expanding geographically, Northfield hopes to grow its patient base to support more specialized services, such as cardiology, medical oncology, urology, maternal-fetal medicine and rheumatology. Growth has already seen employee levels rise to more than 500 and annual revenue to $52 million.

Strategic Vision

“We’ve been pretty strong in trying to form partnerships to develop our services,” says Ken Bank, President and CEO at Northfield. “It’s been a big part of our strategic planning process for the past few years.” These big strategic changes began in 2003 when the organization opened a new $34 million hospital, allowing it the capacity to pursue more diversity and specialism of operations.

With 20 of his 30 years healthcare experience gained at Northfield, Ken has helped guide the organization through its recent period of change. This includes the recruitment of around 20 physicians over the past two years, not an easy task given the current shortage of primary care physicians across the US. “We wanted to bring in a mix of experience and recent graduates, and we’ve been very successful in doing that,” he says. “Luckily this is a desirable place for people to live in. It’s a local community area but less than 45 minutes from the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul – so you get the best of both worlds.”

Ken’s responsibilities include overseeing senior administrative staff, nursing services, clinic operations, business services and support services. He believes that having put its new infrastructure in place, the hospital is now poised to embrace its new position; clinics can take a few years to develop but the impact is beginning to show with an increased flow of patients. In the long term the hope is that this demand will help the hospital become a centre of excellence for cardiology and cancer care.

The Challenge of Change

But change doesn’t come without challenge and the relative pace of progress has meant that Northfield has had to react quickly to its new role. Specifically, the decision to diversify geographically has required the hospital to adapt to a new type of organizational structure. It is, for example, currently in the process of installing the final few modules of a new Electronic Medical Records System, developed by MEDITECH. This will provide a centralized store of medical records which can be accessed quickly from any of the care sites. The system also has huge benefit in terms of security and patient safety, with less room for error than a paper-based system.

In adapting, though, the challenge extends to retaining the core organizational values of the past. Since it was founded Northfield has prided itself on providing unique patient care. “We became who we are because of our ability to give a personalized service,” says Ken. “Our patients want to be cared for by people who they know and can connect with. As we get bigger the challenge is to maintain that feeling. We’ve done a lot around staff orientation and communication but it’s an ongoing test, we’ve not got all the answers yet.”

Community Spirit

This drive to retain localized, personal care is rooted in Northfield’s history and so remains a strong commitment for the future; the hospital was founded in 1910 and became city owned in 1934, effectively making it a community asset. Ken says that this has helped to forge the strong community ties: “We have great support from the citizens because they feel like we belong to them – and we do.”

As operations move into more rural areas the community spirit isn’t far behind – helping maintain this relationship under the new structure. The hospital is committed to supporting local organizations, for example, and to invest in the local economy by employing local people. Corporately, there are staff volunteering schemes, a community initiative to promote healthy youth development, and fundraising to support people who are beginning healthcare careers. Northfield employees also participate in regional clinics for uninsured people on a voluntary basis. The scheme has been in operation for little over a year, but has proved invaluable for low-paid and vulnerable people who don’t have easy access to health insurance.

On an operational level, however, the hospital’s status as a publicly-owned body meant that management needed the support of the city council before it set its strategic plans in motion for the new regional clinics. “Thinking long-term, it’s not hard to justify,” says Ken. “Although finance was going out of the city, with an increased customer base the end benefit will be directly improved and more specialized services in Northfield.”

With such a strong strategic drive for improvement, ambition clearly isn’t scarce. The hospital’s mission of providing service excellence is a day-to-day pursuit driven by six organizational values; integrity, respect, competence, cooperation, communication and stewardship. The recent launch of its ‘I Promise’ campaign aimed to reaffirm this fundamental commitment to personalized patient care and safety – showing that these principles will be as valued in the new era as they were in the old.