Lake Lansing Family Health Center Improvement Team: (left to right) Phyllis DeHaan, Jack Pitts, Sarah Jacobs, Meghan Hudson, Michele Duby, Bridget Cowles, Cassandra Ellison, Jennifer Johns, Renee´ Darling, Janis Winans and Bill Middlebrooks.

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Chances are, if you call the Lake Lansing Health Center and get Cassandra Ellison on the phone, you can pretty much predict what she is going to say: “Thank you for calling Blue Care Network Family Health Centers. This is Cassandra. How can I help you?”

That’s because Ellison, Business Supervisor for the Lake Lansing Call Center, was part of a Health Center Improvement Team looking at ways to improve customer service. Using a standard greeting for all phone calls is one of the suggestions that has already been adopted at both Lake Lansing and the Creyts Road Health Centers.

“Our entire focus was, ‘What can we do to improve the patient’s experience?’” Ellison said. “Now, we have a clear process for handling phone calls. We always repeat the caller’s request, to make sure we’ve heard it correctly, and at the end, we ask if there’s anything else we can do for them. This has cut down on repeat calls and been a real morale booster for the staff.”

The two teams — one at Creyts Road and the other at Lake Lansing — met regularly for 12 weeks starting in late August, with a follow-up meeting in both November and December to make sure they were on track, said Joe Kyle, Director of Operations, Family Health Centers.

“We are working to empower the staff to be involved, to make recommendations and to act on behalf of our patients,” he said. “We’re just starting the execution stage right now, and we should reap many of the rewards and benefits in 2006.”

Among the recommendations being implemented at both facilities:

• Monthly patient eduction programs taught by health education staff.
• Additional employee recognition programs, including “It’s All About You,” which recognizes the generous acts of staff members; the honorees wear a button for a week, then pass it along to another deserving person.
• The addition of ATM machines.

Bill Middlebrooks, a longtime Blues consultant and Managing Partner of Excellence In Action Inc., served as facilitator for both teams. Members were elected by job category — nurse, medical assistant, and so on — using a secret ballot.

In the process, Middlebrooks met regularly with BCN President and CEO Kevin Seitz, Medical Director Derek Lanier, MD, and Kyle to ensure the teams continued to make good progress.

“My role was to facilitate discussion and get the teams out of the silo mentality,” Middlebrooks said. “The staff needed to have a greater appreciation and sensitivity as to how their jobs have an impact upstream and downstream, including how their jobs impact delivery to the patient.”

For example, a work group may make a decision that makes it easier for them to do their jobs but has a negative effect on another work group.

“We need to always consider the broader view instead of thinking that the job is done once it leaves your department. The patient experience includes everything from their first phone call to when they register, are seen by the staff, pay their bill, get their prescription and walk to the car,” Middlebrooks said. “We are talking about going from ‘good’ to ‘great.’ There is a lot of heavy lifting involved in making this happen.

“We live in an instant microwave society, but what we are developing is a new set of habits and a new culture. We can’t fix it all overnight,” he added.