The results of a patient satisfaction survey taken at North Shore Hospital in the fourth quarter of 2011 are in, and they show responses close to state and national averages.
At the February 16, 2012 meeting of the hospital board, Administrator Kimber Wraalstad said that small rural facilities generally do better than large hospitals. She said she believes this is “because you’re taking care of your friends, family, and neighbors.”
Twenty patients out of the 68 admitted during the quarter returned surveys, and 61 percent of the respondents were female.
One hundred percent of the patients felt nurses always treated them with courtesy and respect. Ninety percent believed nurses always came as soon as they needed them when they pressed the call button and listened carefully to what they said. Ninety-five percent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the skill of their nurses. One hundred percent reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their nurses’ attitude toward their requests and the amount of attention they paid to their special or personal needs.
Ninety-five percent of respondents reported they were satisfied or very satisfied with the skill of their doctors. Ninetyfive percent believed their doctors always treated them with courtesy and respect; one person (5 percent) answered “never.” Eightyfive percent felt their doctors always listened carefully to them, with the rest saying the felt their doctors usually listened carefully to them. Ninety-five percent felt their doctors always or usually explained things in a way they could understand.
Fifty percent of patients believed their pain was always well controlled when they were in the hospital. This was lower than the 70 percent of people in state and national surveys who believe their pain was always well controlled. Ninety percent believed the hospital staff always or usually did everything they could to help them with their pain.
Seventy-five percent of the patients reported being satisfied or very satisfied with the staff’s response to their concerns or complaints, and 65 percent reported being satisfied or very satisfied with the effort the staff made to include them in treatment decisions.
On a scale of 0-10 with 0 being “worst possible” and 10 being “best possible,” 85 percent of the respondents gave North Shore Hospital a rating of 9 or 10. The state average is 71 percent, Wraalstad said, and the national average is 68 percent.
Ninety percent of the patients said they would recommend the hospital to their friends and family. The state average is 73 percent and the national average is 70 percent, Wraalstad said.
Extra comments ranged from “very comfortable room with a lot of space” to “whole building was cold.” Comments about the food ranged from “food very tasty” to “lunch menus too heavy.” One person wrote, “Nursing staff couldn’t have been more caring and helpful all times of the night.” Obstetrics patient comments included, “Dr. Sampson was amazing—we felt informed and welltaken care-of,” “Nurses were very attentive to our needs. They were all very nice and worked very hard to keep us comfortable,” and “The amazing staff was a huge contributor to my birth experience being an excellent one.”
Administrator Wraalstad’s favorite comment was, “I felt like I was on a wonderful vacation, being waited upon hand and foot.” Record scanning and archiving
Teresa Hanson gave the board an overview of the computerization of patient records. “It’s changed our work flow quite a lot and I think we’ll see the advantages of it as we go along,” she said. “It’s really changed the way we do things.”
Some of the bigger advantages right now are spotting drug errors and transferring records to other places, said Dr. Sandy Stover, but as more data is input, doctors and patients will be able to use it for things like seeing how blood pressure results have corresponded to weight changes over time. ER visits down
January Emergency room visits were down from the previous year, reported Controller Yvonne Gennrich, with 140 visits compared to 177 last January. She attributed this to fewer ski and snowmobile accidents due to the fact that this season has brought very little snow.
The facility made a profit of $57,545 in January. Biomass
The board discussed an ongoing grantfunded study to determine the feasibility of using biomass to heat buildings throughout Cook County. They shared concerns about whether a district heating system in Grand Marais could be hooked into the hospital’s infrastructure and how long it might take to get a return on the investment in the form of lower heating costs.
Board member Tom Spence said he wanted to communicate to the community members involved in the study, “Don’t assume we’re going to be involved in this.” He said, “I’m getting nervous at how the hospital is being referenced at this point.”
The hospital is looking at a major remodeling of the building to fit new technologies and future needs, and the board talked about how the timing of their plans and any future biomass project would or would not coincide.
They need to look at whether the benefits would be worth the cost, said Administrator Wraalstad. They’re not against it, she said, just not sure if it would fit their needs. New nurse call system
Administrator Wraalstad said the new nurse call system being installed will keep an automatic record of how long a patient has waited for a nurse after pressing the call button and how often a nurse came to his or her room. The cost of the new system is just over $144,513. Bylaws adoption
The board voted to adopt bylaws that were “amended and restated” from bylaws that had been in place since the early 1990s. They include statements about the purpose of the hospital; its accountability to the citizens of Cook County; board, administration, and medical staff responsibilities; quality and customer satisfaction; and managing finances.
“It’s neat, ‘cause it was only four pages and now it’s 20,” said Board Chair Howard Abrahamson.
“No, 10,” said Administrator Kimber Wraalstad. “There are only 10!”
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