Monday, November 16, 2009

H1N1 Vaccine at Immunization Clinic Now Available

Naval Hospital Now Providing H1N1 Vaccination to below patients:
* All Infants aged 6 months to 35 months (they need two doses)
* Children aged 3 years to 18 years (we have both inactivated (Injectable) and attenuated nasal mist)
* Parents and care givers of infants (we have both inactivated (Injectable) and attenuated nasal mist)
* Pregnant women (OB must screen all OB patients prior to vaccination)
* Individuals with chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, COPD and neurologic conditions or who are immune compromised (ie. On prednisone). (We have the inactivated (Injectable) vaccine for this group.)
* Healthcare workers

We are NOT vaccinating large numbers of Healthy Adults or the elderly at this time unless they are in one of the above groups. As always providers may use their best clinical judgment.

Active duty with immanent deployment orders will also be vaccinated by
either the Preventive Medicine Department or their perspective BAS.

For questions, please call CDR Carol Grush at 830-2626 or the Preventive Medicine Techs at 830-2002.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Great American Smoke Out Celebration

All are cordially invited to the celebration! Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms will sign the new tobacco free campus instruction on the Great American Smoke Out.
Mark your calendars for a celebration! We are celebrating both the creation of a Tobacco Free Naval Hospital as well as the Great American Smoke Out (GASO)! The Naval Hospital will celebrate the GASO this year by holding a Tobacco Free Campus Initiative instruction signing event. The CO of the Naval Hospital, CAPT Albia, will sign the new Naval Hospital Tobacco Instruction which will designate all Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms governed areas to be tobacco free zones. All are invited to Classrooms 1&2 of the Naval Hospital at 1100 on the 19th of November to help us celebrate becoming a tobacco free hospital.
What is the Great American Smoke Out you ask? The GASO is a tobacco awareness event started in the mid 1970’s by a few grass roots organizations and individuals. The GASO has grown over the decades to become an annual American Cancer Society organized national event to help create awareness about the health risks of tobacco and offer support and resources to those who want to quit tobacco. GASO is always the 3rd Thursday of November and this year falls on the 19th of November.
Please join the Naval Hospital in celebrating another step towards a healthier Navy & Marine Corps family by ensuring that you as patients are always safe from second hand tobacco use while at your naval hospital.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Update on the Call Center Phone System

In response to this year's decreased access to care, Twentynine Palms Naval
Hospital has initiated many interventions in the Call Center including,
implementing the state-of-the art phone system August 2009, to help lessen
the effects on patient care:

ADDED A TRIAGE NURSE TO OUR NURSING STAFF:
1. To evaluate patients’ needs for appointments and offer advice for
home healthcare.
2. Ensures appointments are appropriately and accurately booked to
prevent patients from seeking unnecessary medical healthcare in the form of
clinic visits.

INITIATED A NEW PHONE MENU FOR EASIER PATIENT USAGE:
1. Patients have many options to self-serve such as cancel
appointments or leave a message for the nurse, which eases the workload of
the call center clerks and decreases patient wait times on the phone.
2. To further decrease wait times for appointments, the department
has added more clerks to the morning shift, the busiest call time of day,
further decreasing times and phone call abandon rates.
3. Cancellation procedures have been improved to efficiently process
patient wishes to cancel appointments, consequently, decreasing our no-show
rate and increases appointment availability for acute patient medical needs.

4. In the absence of call center staff due sick or expected leave,
the clinic business managers (Registered Nurses) have stepped in to handle
calls.

As a result of these changes, customer satisfaction has improved.
Increased areas include:
*overall satisfaction with the phone system (63% to 70%)
*ease of scheduling (66 to 70%)
*consideration of the patient’s schedule (79 to 83%)
*ability to see provider when needed (74 to 76%)

CLINIC SATISFACTION SURVEY:
Our clinics continue to reach out to you and evaluate our performance with
satisfaction surveys. During your clinic visit, we will be distribute
surveys in November, please take the time to complete them.

- As we continuously strive to improve services, up-to-date information can
be found in the base or hospital newspaper speedcalls, FACEBOOK, TWITTER,
and THE HOSPITAL BLOG page.
- If you have any suggestions for improvement or comments, please contact
our Customer Relations Representative or myself.

Thanks for entrusting us with your care and helping us reach our vision to
be the treatment facility of choice.