Estimates suggest that preventable harm in health care is the third leading cause of death in the US. In 2019, Centura committed to achieve zero preventable harm across our organization by 2025 by becoming a High Reliability Organization (HRO). As we approach a new fiscal year, we wanted to intentionally pause and celebrate the incredible amount of work our design teams, leaders, associates and providers have done this past year to catapult us further along in our HRO journey. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our 21,000 incredible people for making this learning journey possible…Thank you for making a difference! Please view our HRO year one digital yearbook to see the milestones captured during our first year here.

Our celebrations from the past year include:

• Deferring to Expertise:  This past year, all the HRO work was designed by our multi-disciplinary team of experts from around the system, many of whom you already know and work with on a regular basis. Nine design teams were formed, working on many of the projects you’re familiar with today, including Tiered Safety Huddles, Universal Skills, Fair and Just Culture, Lean Problem Solving and Kotter Change Management. More than 550 associates came together to design how we will implement, embed, measure and sustain these HRO practices throughout our organization in the years to come.
   
• Increasing Situational Awareness and Sensitivity to Operations:  Tiered Safety Huddles, our first HRO practice, implemented one year ago, quickly became popular among our associates and providers at all levels of the organization. Tiered Safety Huddles give our associates a forum to rapidly report and escalate safety concerns, break down the silos between units, foster a culture of collaboration and increase collective awareness and capacity for reducing harm. It unifies our incredible people across our connected ecosystem to improve safety, creates focus for leaders on helping the front lines do their best work and helps drive a culture of change needed to improve safety and quality.   
   
• Focusing on our Pre-occupation with Failure: Universal Skills also rolled out late last year and provided our foundational error-prevention tools necessary to reduce preventable harm. In September 2019, we called upon our associates to champion these new skills by becoming High Reliability Trainers. More than 450 of our incredible people signed up to teach these vital skills to their fellow associates, and that number continues to rise every month. Our High Reliability Trainers, to date, have taught more than 1,000 classes across Colorado and Western Kansas, and have trained more than 12,000 of our 21,000 associates. Half of our connected ecosystem has attended, adopted and are daily practicing these HRO Universal Skills as part of our shared commitment to achieve zero preventable harm.
   
• Strengthening our Fair and Just Culture: Throughout this training, the safety of our associates has been a top priority. We want our associates to feel comfortable and safe speaking up when they recognize that something is wrong. This principle, known as “Psychological Safety” is a key tenet of any Highly Reliable Organization. We introduced Speak up for Safety and implemented a standard Fair and Just Culture algorithm. These programs are not just a means to further reduce harm, but to create a fair, consistent, and systematic approach to understanding how safety events occurred by focusing on process, prevention and improvement rather than placing blame on individuals. The implementation of a Fair and Just Culture is instrumental in reducing errors, increasing transparency of safety events and creating a culture of safety. We not only want to make sure you feel safe reporting safety events when they occur, but to feel safe caring for those that need it the most.
   
• Reluctance to Simplify: Finally, in December, Leaders from across Centura Health were invited to a two-day Root-Cause Analysis (RCA) workshop. More than 75 leaders attended this HRO workshop and were trained on how to conduct our new standard RCA process and identify system issues when an event occurs.

It’s important to know that Code You accounts do not carry over to the new Inspire Wellbeing platform. To participate in Inspire Wellbeing, you will need to complete a simple, one-time registration. Associates: Register through MyVirtualWorkplace Covered spouses: Register at wellbeing.centura.org

Our mission is whole person care. We are connected in this common purpose, and we know caring for the whole health of our incredible caregivers is just as important as caring for our patients and communities. That’s why we’ve launched an all-new associate wellbeing program: Inspire Wellbeing.

Associates (and their covered spouses, as applicable) need to register for the new platform in order to participate in Inspire Wellbeing and earn their wellness rewards. Now through the end of October, when you register you’ll be entered into weekly drawings for Visa gift cards. The earlier you register, the more chances you have to win!

Congratulations to the winners from our first week:

• Luis Arturo Beatriz-Velez
• Stacey Beck
• Annette Diaz
• Claudia Hiatt
• Andrea Narvaez

• Associates: Register through MyVirtualWorkplace
• Covered spouses: Register at wellbeing.centura.org

Suicide is among the leading causes of death for people of all ages, with thousands across the nation taking their own lives each year. According to the CDC, suicide rates increased by 30% nationally between 1999 and 2016, including 34% in Colorado and 45% in Kansas.

 

Several things may put a person more at risk of suicide, including: Family history of suicide Access to firearms Serious or chronic medical illness History of trauma or abuse Prolonged stress Recent tragedy or loss

While the numbers show a growing problem, if we recognize the warning signs and help those at-risk, we can prevent suicide. Behavioral Health is a primary focus for Centura year-round, and National Suicide Prevention Week, Sept. 6-12, is a time dedicated to shining a light on suicide and how we can work together to prevent it and help each other and our communities flourish. 

Suicidal thoughts can affect anyone regardless of age, gender or background, but they should not be considered normal and often indicate more serious mental health issues.

One key to prevention is being able to identify the warning signs. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI), we should watch for friends, family and loved ones who:

• Share comments or thoughts about suicide
• Increase their use of alcohol and/or drugs
• Show aggressive behavior
• Withdraw from friends, family and community
• Show dramatic mood swings
• Act impulsively or recklessly

• Talk openly and honestly. Don’t be afraid to ask questions like: “Do you have a plan for how you would kill yourself?”
• Remove means such as guns, knives or stockpiled pills.
• Calmly ask simple and direct questions, like “Can I help you call your psychiatrist?”
• If there are multiple people around, have one person speak at a time.
• Express support and concern.
• Don’t argue, threaten or raise your voice.
• Don’t debate whether suicide is right or wrong.
• If you’re nervous, try not to fidget or pace.
• Be patient.

• The Suicide Prevention Resource Center
• National Alliance of Mental Illness
• World Suicide Prevention Day

Information Technology (IT) will perform maintenance on Epic on Sunday, September 13, resulting in planned downtimes beginning at 11:30 p.m. (2330) MT with an environmental pause lasting approximately 5 minutes. 

For Epic:

• All hyperspace connections will be suspended for less than 5 minutes.
• Users logged into Epic when the update begins will receive a message (shown below) indicating the environment is paused. Users will not be able to log in to Epic during this brief period.
• Once the installation is complete, users will be able to resume workflows.

The Centura Health Foundations have partnered with Walden University for a new scholarship opportunity available to all Centura Health associates. Walden University has generously donated 30, $15,000 scholarships to Centura Health associates who enroll in a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral program and begin classes on or before December 31, 2020 at Walden University. For scholars whose degree program exceeds $15,000, your local Centura Health hospital foundation will provide a 50% matching gift to each scholarship winner (not to exceed $7,500).

With more than 80-degree programs and more than 385 specializations and concentrations, Walden University can offer Centura Health associates a way to build highly transferable skills that can be immediately applied, as well as a pathway for greater career success. To qualify for a scholarship, the degree program you enroll in must meet the hiring needs of Centura Health. With only 30 scholarships available to Centura Health associates this will be a highly competitive application process.

This unique opportunity is powered by philanthropy and would not be possible without the generosity of Walden University and our community of donors, including many associate donors. 

To learn more about this incredible opportunity please join us for our last virtual Q & A on Thursday, September 10 at 8pm MDT. You can register for it by clicking, here.

You can also visit WaldenU.edu/CenturaHealth-Scholars to learn how to apply, eligibility and requirements, and important deadlines. 

Feeling overwhelmed
 

Centura Health is dedicated to becoming the system of choice in Colorado and western Kansas, and we want to support our caregivers on their growth and development journey. As part of our HR Transformation, a new process for tuition reimbursement is effective, as of July 1.

Here’s what you need to know:  
All tuition reimbursement requests, pre-approvals and inquiries must be submitted through the Self Service Hub. Below are links that provide direct access to the tuition reimbursement page in the Self Service Hub, the Quick Guides containing step-by-step instructions for both pre-approval requests and tuition reimbursement requests, and the tuition reimbursement policy. 
 

• Self Service Hub-Tuition Reimbursement
• How to Submit a Pre-Approval Request
• How to Submit a Tuition Reimbursement Request
• Tuition Reimbursement Policy

In an essay published shortly before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote of the dangers of closed tribes as the ‘great new problem of mankind’:

“We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu – a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.”

He went on to say that all inhabitants of the globe are now neighbors; “all men are interdependent” and “all life is interrelated.”

“Neighbor” comes from the Old English word neahgebur, which means “near-dweller;” by this definition, a neighbor can literally be anyone who lives in our geographical vicinity. The word neighbor may also refer to a person we know and who knows us, someone with whom we are familiar even from afar.

Although familiarity is more personal than someone who happens to live next door, down the block or in the same building as us, it is not the most profound meaning of “neighbor.” When Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) he responded by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that, along with being a radical indictment of the religious elite (speaking truth to power), makes the point that a true neighbor is a person who responds to the plight of one in need, who gives hands-on care even to a stranger. And when Dr. King says “all inhabitants of the globe are now neighbors,” he too is being prophetic by positing that each one of us has a responsibility to attend to others no matter where they live or what our differences.

Religious scholar and author Huston Smith cautions us to “beware of the differences that blind us to the unity that binds us.” Unity is not merely a matter of likeness, it is not about common ethnicity, religion, economic status, sexual orientation, political persuasion and the like, for these are very real differences. When we identify with them, such groupings can make us “closed tribes;” they become not just the substance of differences, but the source of divisions. The unity that binds us has to do with our spiritual essence, with the fact that what enlivens all of us is the same – we share a common source and sustaining force.
    
We live in a global village, the earth is our ‘hood, our planet is a “world house.” Because we live under the same celestial ceiling, and because the ground upon which we walk is our shared floor, we are neighbors, yes, but housemates too, called not merely to get along, but to realize that we belong to each other.
 
Tom Stella, NCC
Corporate Chaplain
tomstella37@gmail.com