Case Study

Building Excellence at Norwell Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice

At Norwell Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice, Chief Operating Officer Kate Mercier worked with Adams Strategy Group to figure out why some of her patients were returning to the hospital after being discharged. Here, Kate shares how the process helped her team uncover the problem and build a better system.

“Our job is to deploy the resources needed to keep recently discharged patients safe at home. When the patient goes back to the hospital – for whatever reason – I consider that a failure of our home care system. I wanted to know what was the most common reason – is this something we could fix?”

Over the course of several months, Kate and her team worked with Adams Strategy Group to drill down and push to get the right data to fully understand what was happening.

“We learned that during the first two weeks of a patient being discharged, someone needed to visit or call at least once every two days. It didn’t matter if it was a nurse, a therapist, an aid, etc. As long as someone spoke or saw the patient at least every other day, that patient was less likely to go back into the hospital.”

Kate’s team learned that if a patient made it to the two-week mark of being home, the chances of them remaining safe at home went up significantly. If they kept them well during that time, they would do well at home.

“We were able to put some structure and systems into place, and we’ve seen tremendous improvement.”

This is just one example of Adams Strategy Group Transformational Operational Excellence in action. 

“Adams Strategy Group keep it very simple. It’s simple concepts that they break down into manageable steps and processes that cover cultural, behavioral, and strategic changes. Together, we are building a system for the organization to be successful. It’s applicable to everyone’s actual job.”

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