Q&A

Good morning!

Today is the last Friday of 2023, so I’ll respond to some of the submissions you’ve sent to me through the VC Notes inbox. I’ll do more than the usual five Q&As today since we didn’t do this last month.

I read all your questions and comments and enjoy hearing from you. I’m only able to respond to some of them in this space, but I pass the rest along to senior administrators for their review and possible follow-up.

First off, I want to give you an update on a topic that you frequently ask and comment about:  food services. We want to always be moving toward improvements in the areas of inpatient and cafeteria food. Currently, we feel we just aren’t hitting the mark of where we think things should be, so, we opened a request for proposals for vendors who wish to be our food services provider. We received strong submissions from several national vendors, and we’ve submitted follow-up questions to each. Selection of finalists is underway, and those chosen will give in-person presentations to the selection committee next month. The goal is to award the contract by mid-January and finalize an agreement with the chosen vendor in early February. 

Now, on to your submissions.

—   —   —

Q: Is there any way we could get some soft lobby music to play in the background in the foyer. I think it would brighten the atmosphere and attitudes of the patients and family members entering the building.

A:  The easy answer to this question is “Yes!”

For those of you who haven’t already heard it, we now have an automatic grand piano in the University Hospital lobby. It plays music all day and sounds beautiful. It provides a significant atmosphere upgrade and hopefully eases some of the tension our patients and families may be feeling when entering.

Thanks to Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs, for getting this piano installed along with all the other recent visual and facility upgrades in the lobby – like a new bathroom just inside to the south of the entrance.

—   —   —

Q: I wanted to make you aware of a frequent problem I encounter when wheeling patients out for discharge to the front of the hospital. When visitors see me with the newly empty wheelchair, they try to hail me like a cab to take them or their loved ones to appointments or to visit someone in the hospital. They don't understand why I can't let them take the chair or when I don't have time to take them myself because I need to return to my unit. This leaves them to conclude that UMMC staff are rude and unwilling to help, although I have helped on occasion when I was able. Can we get more wheelchairs to stay at the front of the hospital and volunteers to help wheel the visitors and return the chairs?

A: Some other aspects of the University Hospital lobby we are improving include access to and assistance with wheelchairs.

To make things easier for our patients and families, an Ambassador is now stationed in the lobby during peak arrival and discharge times along with an increased supply of wheelchairs, which are being tagged with trackers that will go live early next year. The trackers will help make sure wheelchairs get back to the lobby, instead of just sitting somewhere unused.

—   —   —

Q: When will the ICUs go back to using the "badge system" we used pre-COVID for visitation? It was much easier for a visitor to grab one of the two badges w/the bed number on it and swap out with someone else than the current system. There also wasn't a restriction on the number of visitors per day for the bedside nurse to enforce. Nurses and unit clerks are at the forefront of irritating visitors by enforcing the rules, which makes caring for the critically ill more difficult. More than two at a time interferes with quality of care, but at any given moment now there will be three at a time. Over six per day have been witnessed coming through, with ICU staff having to handle.

A: We are making updates to our visitation policy that will go live in January. 

The updated policy will include enhancements to the current visitor identification systems for our ICUs, including reduced restrictions on visitation times and number of visitors per day. The rule of two visitors at the bedside at the same time will remain in place, with certain exceptions, but the new policy will allow more visitors to rotate in and out. Visitors will be easily identified by visible stickers, which will display the patient’s unit and bed location. 

—   —   —

Q: Hi, Dr. Woodward! We were eating outside and were curious when/if any upgrades were going to be made to the playground off the Wiser Cafeteria? It seems like a great place for our kids to enjoy, but I feel we are not utilizing it to its full extent!

A: Improvements are on the way in this area. 

The plan is to renovate the existing play area between the Batson and Wiser towers, the Rainbow Garden, to be a play space that can also be used for patient therapy by our clinical teams. This need for outdoor play and therapy space will increase following the build-out of a new adolescent psychiatry unit, which will be located on the second floor of the Circle Tower.

Thanks to generous, thoughtful donors like Robbie Hughes, we have funding for this renovation project.

And in case you haven’t seen it, the Gail and Tom Benson Playground opened a few months ago on the east side of Sanderson Tower adjacent to the garage. This new space is available for any child who wants to play, including visitors.

—   —   —

Q: I am wondering if Zoom platform can be used instead of Webex or Teams. Zoom is robust and allows greater flexibility with meeting interactions while keeping its channels secure.

A: While certainly not new, using video conferencing for meetings or and/or events really took off during COVID and only slightly slowed down. Through our technology agreement with Cisco, UMMC personnel have access to WebEx, a robust video conferencing tool that is used by many institutions nationally. And since it’s already baked into our email, messaging and phone systems, it’s the easiest and most workflow-friendly option to use. Also available is Microsoft Teams. Teams is included in our Microsoft agreement but lacks the same level of voice integration as Cisco Webex.

Zoom can be easy to use and has become popular because it’s accessible, but during COVID, our Division of Information Systems team found some security issues that eliminated it as an institutional solution.

If, for some reason, it’s imperative that you use Zoom, please reach out to Kevin Yearick, chief information officer, with details of your situation.

Q: Is there any way to get CE Central to be a part of the "single sign-on" for UMMC? I frequently find myself with issues remembering the login name and password for that site.

A: This is being worked on. Our enterprise SSO – single sign-on – system is Imprivata and DIS is testing to see if it will work with CE Central. This functionality will be available as soon as testing and security checks are complete.

—   —   —

Q: Will more areas of the hospital have bottle-filling stations installed? Some water fountains in my building (New Guyton) have been turned off, and I have to go to other areas near my building to fill my water bottle.

A: We are continuing to replace regular water fountains with bottle filling stations in facilities across campus, first emphasizing public areas for use by our patients and visitors. If you don’t have one yet in your area, be assured that it is on the list.

—   —   —

Q: Does UMMC provide any form of therapy? I think that would be a great opportunity for employees to talk about burnout or other personal issues and hopefully prevent turnover. 

A: We have many therapy and counseling options available. The UMMC Office of Well-being provides on their intranet web page lists of in-house, local and national services offered to faculty, staff and students, with information about each service to make it easier to choose which path is right for you. The options listed are facilitated by several UMMC units, including the Office of Well-being, Academic Affairs, Human Resources and the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior.

I encourage you to take advantage of these services, which cover just about any needs that you may have. If you can’t find what you are looking for, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Office of Well-being’s RISE program at rise@umc.edu, which can get you connected with the therapy or other care that you may need.

—   —   —

Q: Is there stork parking at the stadium for expectant mothers? I’ve seen several very pregnant women walking from overflow lately. 

A: Facilities Services has a medical parking accommodation process for employees and students who have a temporary parking need. This process is also available to pregnant mothers. Each submission is reviewed by Human Resources, which determines those requests that warrant a parking accommodation or offer for the “medical van” to pick them up at a designated area in the stadium lot and drop them off as close to the desired location as possible. 

The request form for this can be found here.

Q: Often times when the weather is nice, employees and students want to take their lunch break outside, or even take a small break to get a breath of fresh air. There are very limited tables or areas to sit outside that would allow people to do this. Are there any considerations for adding an area with tables or seating to enjoy the outside?

A: There are actually many spots on the Jackson campus where tables and seats are available, some with umbrellas. Options for outdoor eating or just getting a little (approved) break from work include the area between University Heart and the south entrance to the School of Nursing, the breezeway behind the research buildings, behind the Nelson Student Union, the School of Medicine courtyard – which also includes some covered tables, between the credit union and the Alumni House, and others. The newest addition to this list is the group of umbrella tables behind the School of Dentistry. 

As always, thank you for these and all the other submissions to the VC Notes. Please continue sending them to the inbox.

—   —   —