Worth Cele”B”rating

Good morning! 

Before I get to today’s topic – which I can’t wait to talk about – I want encourage you to make plans to attend UMMC 101: Budget and Finance by Jennifer Sinclair, chief financial officer, Tuesday, November 14 at noon in R153. This is a good opportunity to learn more about the financial inner workings of an academic medical center and the internal and external factors that impact how Jennifer and her team go about balancing the proverbial books. While all of us can benefit from knowing more about these topics, I think this session is an especially important one to attend for anyone in a business or budget/finance role.

Now, on to the topic for today – Leapfrog!

I’m sure by now that most of you have heard, or read, the BIG news that UMMC Grenada was named an “A” hospital in the fall 2023 reporting cycle by The Leapfrog Group and that our Jackson-based hospitals together earned a “B” grade.

I’m so proud of UMMC Grenada’s achievement, and I know each of you has dedicated to improving the hospital’s quality metrics, and this grade justifies that extra effort! Ever since Grenada County’s community hospital joined the UMMC Health System, the people and surrounding counties it serves have benefited from its connection to the state’s only academic medical center. Now, their patients have verified proof that they are receiving safe, effective care. Congratulations!

As for the care delivered on our main Jackson campus, a “B” is our highest score ever and a monumental achievement, not only as an academic medical center in the country’s sickest state but also considering it wasn’t that long ago – just a few months after I became vice chancellor in 2015 — that a big red “F” appeared on the front page of The Clarion Ledger. The sight of that still haunts me. I felt sick about it for weeks. I didn’t want anyone to think we were an “F” institution, because we were not.

But, waking up Monday and seeing that beautiful blue “B” next to our name on the Leapfrog website gave me a jolt of energy. If it took the shock and discomfort of seeing that “F” to prompt us to get serious about the patient safety programs we already had in place, develop them into a more coordinated and expanded effort and change our entire culture around reducing patient harm, then I consider it all worth it.

Leapfrog, like other national clinical quality metrics tracking systems, isn’t perfect. For many reasons, it just can’t completely compare an institution like us to other hospitals that don’t serve the same patient population we do. But such grading systems are helpful in providing a lighthouse toward which we can all steer, and it’s right that we emphasize doing well in them.

Today, the emphasis is on this accomplishment — YOUR accomplishment. I’m quoted in the press release, but reaching this height isn’t just because of me or the efforts of a few leaders. It’s also because of all of you who have been on this eight-year journey, in roles big and small and representing all three mission areas. This grade is thanks to the efforts of more than just a handful of clinical leaders but also to thousands and thousands of you over several years.

I’m eternally grateful for how Dr. Michael Henderson, former chief medical officer, directed us on the right path and set us up for success before he retired in 2022. He was the right person at the right time for UMMC. Dr. Lisa Didion, now CMO, Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs, and their teams led us the rest of the way to complete the improvements needed to get us to our score – which is closer to an “A” than a “C.”

It took everybody to get to this place, and it's not just the workforce we have today. This achievement includes the workforce we've had here for the last decade, the people who have come and gone and those of you who have stayed. They and you believed in the importance of this work and making changes, even hard ones, where they needed to be made. Our teams are providing care that I would put up against any hospital, anywhere. So, while I get to be the public cheerleader for this, I want to make it clear that this is a point of pride for everyone. This is all of us pulling in the same direction day after day after day to lead to a score like this and an opportunity to celebrate.

I’m sure most of you are and have always been high achievers, who typically only celebrated when you received an “A.” But, in this instance, I give you every permission to feel excited that UMMC earned a “B.” When you look across the spectrum of academic medical centers that are also high-level trauma centers and serve as safety net hospitals, a “B” puts us in elite company. And it’s well deserved.

We should celebrate, but we cannot rest. The work is not yet done. The effort to protect patients from harm and foster a positive environment for them when they are under our care will never hit an endpoint, and we cannot see this achievement as a destination, but as another step on our journey. We remain committed to our goal of providing high-quality and safe care for Mississippians. There are things on the horizon that are now possible for us as a medical center that wouldn't be if we had not done this hard work, this higher level of scrutiny, of accountability, of transparency, of sharing data and sharing information. It has changed us as an organization, and this grade is proof of that.

We have hit a milestone. We need to hit the next one. This news, though, is a gold star on the map as we continue to trek toward A Healthier Mississippi.