GBMC Lean Daily Management Explained

Dr. John Chessare, GBMC’s president and CEO, knows how important it is for patients and their families to receive the best quality care and feel safe and secure while they’re in the hospital. “Our goal is to deliver to everyone, every time, the care we’d want for our own loved ones,” he explained. “It’s more than a mission. It’s a promise. We have systems in place to ensure that what should happen does and these systems have helped us dramatically improve patient safety and outcomes.”

While other healthcare institutions talk about patient safety, GBMC is the only one to share its up-to-date patient safety metrics directly with patients and members of the community on the medical center’s website. “We hold ourselves to a higher bar,” added Dr. Chessare. “We have a zeal for building and refining systems to ensure patient safety that’s unmatched.

The system is called LEAN Daily Management and its goal is to put improving patient safety at the top of every GBMC manager’s daily agenda. During weekday visits to every department, Dr. Chessare, members of the GBMC leadership team, and department heads talk with staff about key patient safety issues including surgical site infections, hand hygiene, and the patient experience. “We’re there to learn, to say thank you to the staff for their work, and to remove any barriers that managers identify as making it more difficult to do their jobs and deliver safe, high quality care,” he said.

Dr. Chessare also discussed the role that the educated and informed patient has to play in patient safety, what questions you should ask your doctors and nurses, and why a partnership between caregivers and patients is such a powerful safety tool.

“You’re statistically safer at GBMC than you are in your own home,” noted Dr. Chessare. “We’re honored to be the first winner of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) Patient Safety Award. It’s an honor we earned through the hard work and commitment of all our dedicated staff members.”