SHARE Member Jackie Rodriguez Receives AFSCME International "Never Quit" Award

Jackie Rodriguez is a SHARE member in Pathology at UMass Memorial. In December, Jackie was recognized by our parent union, AFSCME, with a “Never Quit Service Award” for the work she does to help patients get accurate test results as quickly as possible. Click here for a short video of Jackie talking about her life, her work, and her union.

Jackie has been taking advantage of the hospital’s Lean training. Below, you can check out the poster she made describing her Green Belt project. By developing a smart standard process for slide management and storage, she’s getting rid of unneeded frustrations for herself and her co-workers, and helping to provide efficient care to patients who need it.

Unit Based Teams in a 2019 Top “Patient Safety Beat” Report

“Labor and management work together,” the Patient Safety Beat reports. SHARE Organizer Will Erickson explains, “The purpose of our partnership and unit-based teams and our union’s involvement in this improvement work is really to change our members’ everyday experience of being at work.”

SHARE’s partnership project with UMass Memorial Hospital was one of the top stories last year in Patient Safety Beat, published online by The Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety. In December, the organization re-posted its “Top 5 Stories of 2019,” and included the piece about Unit Based Teams.

The article highlights that UBTs create opportunities for ongoing improvement at the front line, where employees can use their expertise to make meaningful change.

Cardiac Catheterization Technologist and SHARE member Sue Maddalena describes in the article that her UBT sought to improve communication. As in many hospital areas, their communication relied too heavily on email, in spite of the fact that the caregivers have little opportunity to access email during the workday. Now, a daily 10 minute huddle brings together the technologists, nurses, physicians, and other caregivers who will be involved in the day’s procedures.

Doug Brown, President of UMass Memorial Community Hospitals, and Chief Administrative Officer for the hospital system, says frontline staff need to help lead the necessary improvements in their departments. “They know much more than I do about how to improve their work and deliver great care to the patients,” he tells The Patient Safety Beat, “how to provide really safe care and how to avoid injuries.”

You can read the piece online here.

Antepartum Ultrasound Kaizen Event

A Kaizen Event is a coordinated session designed to make some type of improvement over a set period of time.

The work of our hospital’s obstetrics areas is obviously critical and meaningful. One member of the Antepartum Ultrasound department recently noted that a thing she particularly loves about her work is “when moms bring the babies back to us who weren’t expected to survive.”

When it comes to improving, SHARE members there see that there’s no better time than the present. Staff have long worked in Antepartum Ultrasound with concerns that have kept the department from being the best place to get and give care. A recent Kaizen Event provided a space to be heard and plan workflow improvements. 

Sub-groups during the Kaizen Event brought together a mix of roles and got everyone talking. Together, they identified eight areas of opportunity and potential solutions in these categories:  

SHARE members said that they thought the event was motivational: they were glad to be involved and listened to.

• Staffing & lunches 

• Operational issues 

• Bottlenecks 

• Access 

• Protocols 

• Leadership & communication 

• Standards of respect 

• And a broader category of miscellaneous opportunities to keep track of space issues, learning, etc.  

Although the proof will—as the saying goes—be in the pudding, SHARE members like Sandy Buoniconti and Trina Ratchman see this as a first step they can be optimistic about. We’re rooting for them, and looking forward to continuing to connect them with resources to help them be even better able to do work that makes a difference.

The Kaizen Event brought together High-Risk Obstetric Ultrasound Technologists with physicians and ASR’s in the Department of Maternal Fetal Medicine. Together they met with Jonna Dube, the Senior Director of Ambulatory Services newly designated to lead the area; Department Manager Lynne Stewart; SHARE Organizer Bobbi-Jo Lewis; and SHARE Process Improvement Coach Marie Manna. The Event was facilitated by SHARE organizer Will Erickson.

Introducing Four New Unit Based Teams

The Respiratory Therapy UBT brings together members from both the Memorial and University campuses

Recently, twenty-one SHARE members and management leaders representing four departments attended a training on how to launch the next wave of Unit Based Teams (UBTs). As UBTs, they will tackle the tough challenges in their departments – the “big boulders,” as UBT Coach and SHARE organizer Will Erickson puts it—that get in the way of doing work to be proud of.  

The next four Unit Based Teams will be in these SHARE departments: 

The new Neurodiagnostic Unit UBT leaders

• Respiratory Therapy 

• Single Billing Office 

• Neurodiagnostic Lab

• Nursing Operations 

Another eight UBTs are expected to launch in January, bringing the total number to 25.