Summit Project Launches

This month, Memorial Hospital embarked on a three-year house-wide improvement initiative called the “Summit Project,” designed to improve and streamline patient-care processes, enhancing the overall system for progressing patients from admission to discharge.

With the professional assistance of Navigant, a health care consulting firm; hospital leadership; directors; managers; Associates; and clinicians have come together. We have committed to evaluating all current procedures and implementing changes, where necessary, improving wait times, collaborating on care of care; and much more.

The Summit Project is a three-phase initiative. Our Emergency Department (ED) is many times the first patient-touch point, and therefore will be the first unit to kick off the project. Improvement processes will cover the patient-care experience, from the time of arrival through either discharge or admission to the hospital.

The second phase will be Memorial’s Inpatient (IP) units. This will cover all patient services provided by medical/surgical and critical care units. This includes the use of a patient’s care plan, aligning all care teams toward an Anticipated Date of Discharge (ADOD), creating a stable discharge pre-planning process based on the ADOD and implementing an organized daily Patient Care Rhythm based on these improved processes.

The third and final phase of the project involves ancillary services. This phase will align bed management, staffing, lab, radiology, transport, pharmacy, Allied Health and environmental services that directly support and integrate with the ED and IP units.

This is a huge undertaking and will create a positive paradigm shift in the way we do things. The Summit Project will take Memorial to new heights in patient care. Look for more information regarding this initiative, including a project kickoff event in the near future.