Guest column
What happened to 'world class patient care'?
Linda Stalvey
I wonder if the Cleveland Clinic has examined the words of their motto lately: “Exceptional Employee Experience + World Class Patient Care = Cleveland Clinic Experience.” If you have been in a Cleveland Clinic medical office or the hospital, this motto flashes in rotation on every computer monitor in a cycle of non-stop institutional advertising.
Folks – especially child-bearing women in Medina County and staff at the Birthing Center – may have a different interpretation of that motto than what the Cleveland Clinic intended. I’m not in either category, but I could certainly have fun defining “exceptional.” In a continuum of meaning, “exceptional” can be good or bad. I wonder what connotation people most affected by the decision to close Medina Hospital’s Birthing Center choose?
As a volunteer who provides touch therapy to staff and family, I was welcomed to the Birthing Center one week after the closure announcement. One staffer I chatted with told me she went home and cried the entire evening she heard the news. “We are like a family here,” she said. “I’m losing my family.” Another said this was the third time in 30-plus years she worked at the hospital that she has gone through a department closure. “I’m going to be starting at the bottom again as low man in a new department.” A third had worked in Medina her entire career and did not relish the drive downtown that her next “exceptional employee experience job” would take her.
The staff I interacted with were devastated, primarily for the care the women of Medina County were losing and the jeopardy it was placing vulnerable newborns, and secondly, for their jobs. My interpretation of the comments I heard was that none thought the move would be medically beneficial for their patients.
For moms-to-be in Medina County, the “world class patient care” may be available, but not within an easy commute of anyone’s home. Babies in trouble do not need a 30-minute car, ambulance or helicopter ride. The Cleveland Clinic has removed choice and “world class care” in favor of saving a buck or two, because providing medical care is, first of all, big business.
I suspect if the Cleveland Clinic would take the dollars spent changing the signage every couple of years from “Medina Hospital, a Cleveland Clinic Hospital” to “Cleveland Clinic Medina Hospital” there would be money in the budget to give Medina Hospital the “world class” neonatal care it deserves. Give Medina Hospital a “world class” NICU and women in Medina County won’t have to leave the county to have their babies, and babies, regardless of birth outcome, will also have the “world class” care they deserve.
I worked in a hospital at one time. It takes a special breed to balance the highs and lows that occur daily in a setting where the business is the Circle of Life. I respect the staff at the birthing center and certainly empathize with their situation and that of child-bearing age county women.
From my viewpoint, the “exceptional employee experience” is a pretty negative one; with respect to pregnancy and neonatal care, the “world class patient experience” in Medina is one of a third world country at worst and low man in the system at best.
Hopefully the powers that be will re-examine the awful decision to deny Medina Hospital a birthing center. Medina County is the sixth fastest-growing county in the state of Ohio. Did the Cleveland Clinic look at those numbers when deciding to close the birthing center?
Right now, “Exceptional Employee Experience + World Class Patient Care” is a joke in Medina.
Folks – especially child-bearing women in Medina County and staff at the Birthing Center – may have a different interpretation of that motto than what the Cleveland Clinic intended. I’m not in either category, but I could certainly have fun defining “exceptional.” In a continuum of meaning, “exceptional” can be good or bad. I wonder what connotation people most affected by the decision to close Medina Hospital’s Birthing Center choose?
As a volunteer who provides touch therapy to staff and family, I was welcomed to the Birthing Center one week after the closure announcement. One staffer I chatted with told me she went home and cried the entire evening she heard the news. “We are like a family here,” she said. “I’m losing my family.” Another said this was the third time in 30-plus years she worked at the hospital that she has gone through a department closure. “I’m going to be starting at the bottom again as low man in a new department.” A third had worked in Medina her entire career and did not relish the drive downtown that her next “exceptional employee experience job” would take her.
The staff I interacted with were devastated, primarily for the care the women of Medina County were losing and the jeopardy it was placing vulnerable newborns, and secondly, for their jobs. My interpretation of the comments I heard was that none thought the move would be medically beneficial for their patients.
For moms-to-be in Medina County, the “world class patient care” may be available, but not within an easy commute of anyone’s home. Babies in trouble do not need a 30-minute car, ambulance or helicopter ride. The Cleveland Clinic has removed choice and “world class care” in favor of saving a buck or two, because providing medical care is, first of all, big business.
I suspect if the Cleveland Clinic would take the dollars spent changing the signage every couple of years from “Medina Hospital, a Cleveland Clinic Hospital” to “Cleveland Clinic Medina Hospital” there would be money in the budget to give Medina Hospital the “world class” neonatal care it deserves. Give Medina Hospital a “world class” NICU and women in Medina County won’t have to leave the county to have their babies, and babies, regardless of birth outcome, will also have the “world class” care they deserve.
I worked in a hospital at one time. It takes a special breed to balance the highs and lows that occur daily in a setting where the business is the Circle of Life. I respect the staff at the birthing center and certainly empathize with their situation and that of child-bearing age county women.
From my viewpoint, the “exceptional employee experience” is a pretty negative one; with respect to pregnancy and neonatal care, the “world class patient experience” in Medina is one of a third world country at worst and low man in the system at best.
Hopefully the powers that be will re-examine the awful decision to deny Medina Hospital a birthing center. Medina County is the sixth fastest-growing county in the state of Ohio. Did the Cleveland Clinic look at those numbers when deciding to close the birthing center?
Right now, “Exceptional Employee Experience + World Class Patient Care” is a joke in Medina.