RUSH’s wellness and well-being efforts include a wellness office, wellness resources, and group and individual coaching.
The health and well-being of our staff is one of Chief Medical Officer Paul Casey, MD, MBA’s top priorities for 2024. Rush University Medical Center.
Casey has been CMO of RUSH since June 2019. Prior to becoming CMO, he held multiple positions at RUSH, including Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Senior Patient Safety Officer, Deputy Chief Medical Information Officer, and Director of Emergency Department Operations.
Staff members are a critical asset and the foundation of our success, Casey says.
“Those are always our top priorities,” he says. “Taking a step back, the healthcare industry has come under attack in recent years on a number of fronts, not just from the coronavirus pandemic, but from payers, responding to inflationary pressures, and responding to the challenges of a tight labor market. The only way to successfully meet these challenges is to invest in our people and teams and ensure they are empowered to drive us forward.”
RUSH’s commitment to staff health and wellbeing includes the establishment of a wellness office and wellness resources, but the organization also engages staff through a ‘listening campaign’ to understand the stressors affecting them. says Casey.
“We listen to our staff and work hard to understand their biggest pain points and how we can contribute to solving them, whether it’s in workflow or other areas. “I’ve put in a lot of effort,” he says.
One of the initiatives RUSH launched to address physician burnout is to help manage emails, texts, and MyChart messages from patients to clinicians. Casey said RUSH doctors receive hundreds of such messages each week.
“We have made sure that we have support for doctors so that only the things that need to be told to them are escalated to them,” he says. “We also want to automate routine tasks like refilling prescriptions as much as possible through technology like generative artificial intelligence.”
RUSH has a strong coaching program in place to promote the health and well-being of its staff, Casey says. There is group coaching to discuss how the organization views future challenges and how staff can cope with stressors. Additionally, we offer individual coaching combined with group sessions.
“The group coaching curriculum focuses on different perspectives on how we perceive some challenges in the workplace and how to deal with stress,” he says. “Individual coaching focuses on what individuals are facing, such as work-life balance and scheduling their time. We work with staff members to help them schedule their time as effectively and efficiently as possible. Personal coaching also looks at: “How we find joy in our work and home lives.” ”
Paul Casey, MD, MBA, is the Chief Medical Officer of RUSH University Medical Center. Photo courtesy of RUSH University Medical Center.
Digital patient engagement
Another priority for Casey in 2024 is supporting efforts to expand digital patient engagement at RUSH.
Like many other health care organizations, RUSH has taken a step back in recent years to consider how it can provide more personalized and accessible care, Casey said. Part of this effort is due to pressure from new entrants to healthcare, such as Amazon, he added.
RUSH recently introduced personalized reminders for services such as screenings and health exams.
“We know these are important things, but often not prioritized because of patients’ busy lives,” he says. “For example, we connect digitally through primary care clinics to inform patients that they are overdue for a mammogram and suggest available times for that test.”
RUSH also makes it easier for patients to book appointments digitally, Casey said.
“We want patients to be able to book an appointment in three clicks or less through a reminder system,” he says. “We know that patients are often stuck and getting an appointment can quickly become a hassle. We want to provide a good experience with as few clicks as possible.”
support growth
This year, Casey is also working to build partnerships and expand outpatient services.
“We’re not just thinking about outpatient space in the traditional brick-and-mortar sense of building new clinics or community treatment facilities, although that is part of our plan,” he said. says. “The key to increasing patient accessibility is both the digital work we are doing and our growth through partnerships. We are always looking at new opportunities to expand our online presence.”
Last month, RUSH opened a new rehabilitation hospital in partnership with a large national rehabilitation organization. select medical.
“We have found that growing through partnerships is effective when we find the right partner with the same goals in mind,” says Casey. “Because we are an organization recognized for the high quality of care we provide, we were able to expand our services relatively quickly and at the same quality level we expected.”
RUSH recently opened a new outpatient care facility in Hinsdale, a western suburb of Chicago. “This is both an expansion of our primary care and an expansion of our first concierge service,” he says. “This is an example of how we are expanding the services we offer to patients who want to access RUSH in a variety of ways.”
Promoting health equity
In the health equity space, Casey and his fellow executives are building on the work of David Ansell, former CMO of RUSH.
“He was a pioneer in thinking about health equity long before it became a trendy topic of conversation,” Casey says. “We are focused on Chicago’s West Side community, ensuring that both staff employment opportunities and vendor contracts are sourced through the local economy, contributing to the revitalization of the local economy. We invest in our community. We serve.”
RUSH also focuses on providing equitable care, he says.
“We constantly monitor health equity indicators and conditions among different races and ethnicities to ensure we are providing equitable care,” Casey said. say. “We look for trends that we can identify and correct. We look at all quality metrics to understand trends in our data and understand where opportunities exist to improve health equity. We have started this work for.”
From a health equity perspective, the key quality metrics RUSH tracks include patient experience, readmission rates, and mortality rates on both the inpatient and outpatient side, he says.
