Foundational Priority

Mission & Community

St. Joseph’s Health is proud of the mission set forth by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth 150+ years ago. Serving the poor and vulnerable is a key driver of organization identity and critical decision-making.  SJH firmly believes that community engagement is a fundamental path to the success of our Catholic mission and vision.  Through the initiatives and tactics outlined below, SJH will deploy a creative and innovative approach to collaboration to improve overall health and well-being of the community.

Goals:

1. Joseph’s Health will strengthen and sustain its commitment to the Catholic mission by upholding core values through employee engagement, partnerships, and service to the community.
2. Joseph’s Health recognizes that community engagement is critical to the success of our core mission and vision. SJH will take a creative and innovative approach in the collaboration with members of the community to improve overall health and well-being.

Goal 1: St. Joseph’s Health will strengthen and sustain its commitment to the Catholic mission by upholding core values through employee engagement, partnerships, and service to the community.

Initiatives:

• Enhance the SJH system-wide organizational commitment to mission and community – The spirit of the mission and the core values will be amplified through the organization through the tactics listed below:
  • Increase mission presence and strengthen Catholic identity across organization by implementing recommendations of the Mission Identity Assessment
  • Create and incorporate Mission competencies into future leadership development modules and initiatives for entire leadership team
  • Develop “Workplace Spirituality Modules”’ to assist workforce to better incorporate the Core Values into everyday work function
  • Include elements of ethical decision making in business proposals
  • Create a sustainable resource for the Emergency Relief Fund
  • Build on SJH’s historical relevance and contributions to the well-being of the community

Goal 2: St. Joseph’s Health recognizes that community engagement is critical to the success of our core mission and vision.  SJH will take a creative and innovative approach in the collaboration with members of the community to improve overall health and well-being.

Initiatives:

• Improve communication both internally and externally with the communities served by SJH –Communication with the community will be maximized to highlight the scope and depth of clinical and community programs offered by SJH via the following tactics:
  • Enhanced connectivity to individuals and groups through technology, including web presence and social media
  • Communication and programs offered to the community will be based on the recommendations of the most recent Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA).

• Deepen the organizations sense of service to the community – The success of SJH is rooted in service to the community. Through volunteer opportunities, the SJH family will share time and talent with the community.  Through these efforts, the organization will become better acquainted with those served, outside of the walls of the system.
  • Options for volunteer events will be communicated broadly across the organization and all employees will be encouraged to participate.
  • Leadership appointments on key boards and commissions will be encouraged to ensure that the voice of SJH is represented at various levels.

People, Leadership & Academics

St. Joseph’s Health recognizes that the employee and leadership team is the most instrumental component of this organization’s future success.  SJH will implement key strategic goals aimed at inspiring, innovating, and motivating individuals with hearts for public service to support the mission and thrive in the ever-changing environment of patient centered-care.

Goals:

1. Joseph’s Health strives to be the “employer of choice” by attracting top talent and retaining a skilled workforce. SJH will develop the workforce while promoting high employee engagement.
2. Cultivate an environment that develops humanistic, respectful physicians to provide high quality care to diverse patient populations.

Goal 1: St. Joseph’s Health strives to be the “employer of choice” by attracting top talent and retaining a skilled workforce.  SJH will develop the workforce while promoting high employee engagement.

Initiatives:

• Talent and Organizational Development – SJH recognizes that the team of employees are the backbone to the success of the organization. Efforts to enhance the employee experience and opportunities for individual development will be implemented utilizing the tactics below:
  • Design employee development program to support the development of team members and maximize potential through continuing education. Clear avenues for growth within system, including residents/ fellows will be communicated.
  • Execute on Employee Engagement action items to create a workplace of high engagement and trust.
  • Institute a leadership development program for staff and physicians to increase leadership competency to lead the workforce for the future
  • Review and revise the recruitment process and develop an organization Retention Plan, including implementation of a new compensation program and model
  • Develop succession planning across the organization, including physician chairs
  • Provide education to management to ensure hiring practices are consisted with Health Equity measures (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, local hiring)

• Workforce Relations – Enhancement of the benefit package and the workplace experience will truly make SJH the employer of choice through the following tactics:
  • Maximize the functionality of the tools used to communicate with employees to ensure that the entire team is able to access pertinent information
  • Automate Human Resources operation processes to enhance the user’s experience
  • Continue to evaluate and adapt to contemporary workplace standards, including remote work

• Employee Health Program – A workforce healthy in mind and body is critical to the success of the individual and the organization. SJH will offer and encourage benefits aimed at enhancing wellness.
  • Redesign the employee health program to streamline access to care and wellness
  • Enhance mental health services available to employees
  • Continue to explore, adapt and implement benefit options that align with workforce needs

• Board of Trustees Development – High functioning governance is critical to the progress of an organization. SJH will ensure that opportunities for growth and development are encouraged at the trustee level. 
  • Conduct Board of Trustees self-assessments on a regular schedule
  • Consider a wide, diverse range of candidates for board positions
  • Offer relevant, timely education sessions to board members

 Goal 2: Cultivate an environment that develops humanistic, respectful physicians to provide high quality care to diverse patient populations.

Initiatives:

• Teaching Program Portfolio Management – SJH’s robust training program is a tremendous asset to the organization. Balancing the complement of trainees to match the organizational and community need is integral to fortifying the clinical workforce pipeline.
  • Finalize analysis of all residency programs. Right size the training programs to meet future demand.
  • Explore opportunities to increase the number of primary care providers trained and maintained in the community.
  • Analyze and maximize the current nursing and allied health training programs
  • Enhance relationships with local schools to provide students with early exposure to healthcare careers. 

• Clinician Training – SJH has a long tradition of training physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. To maximize the clinical training programs, the following tactics will be deployed:
  • Develop a mentoring program to assist in recruiting residents and fellows to continue their careers and grow their practices in the SJH community
  • Integrate community outreach into the training curriculums

Quality, Safety and Experience

St. Joseph’s Health strives to provide an excellent patient experience for all those seeking care.  Through commitment to safety, quality, and experience, SJH endeavors to be the trusted healthcare provider of choice in the region.

• Be safe: Commit to zero harm and a just culture. “Don’t Harm Me”
• Be right: Commit to continuous improvement, consistency and best practices. “Heal Me”
• Be kind: Commit to patient-centered, compassionate care – always. “Be Nice to Me” 

Goals:

1. Strive for zero patient harm by identifying risks and evolving a culture of safety throughout the organization
2. Enhance the Quality Management System (QMS) and strengthen organization quality infrastructure to achieve higher levels of performance across the system
3. SJH will create an environment of compassionate care and exceptional experience for the community it serves

Goal 1: Strive for zero patient harm by identifying risks and evolving a culture of safety throughout the organization

Initiatives:

• Continue on High Reliability Organization (HRO) Journey – As a High Reliability Organization, SJH strives to maximize safety and minimize harm through repeatable processes and procedures. To support the HRO journey, the following tactics will be applied:  
  • Revision of the HRO presentation and training additional facilitators
  • Implementing rounding to influence, unit based huddles, and safety coaches
  • Adding weekend and evening huddles
  • Implementation of “Just Culture”

• Commitment to Resilience – SJH will use safety events as an opportunity to develop more efficient/ effective organizational processes, utilizing the following tactics:
  • Patient and family inclusion in the Root Cause Analysis process
  • Enhancing the safety event reporting process by increasing engagement and accountability of management and the timely feedback to the reporter

Goal 2: Enhance the Quality Management System (QMS) and strengthen organization quality infrastructure to achieve higher levels of performance across the system

Initiatives:

• Strive to Achieve High Quality – As an organization, SJH will develop processes to provide a high quality environment for patients, family, and staff. Tactics include:
  • Redesigning and enhancement of the Quality Management System
  • Increasing physician involvement in quality initiatives via physician scorecards, peer review, and participation in Quality Management System
  • Prioritizing key performance indicators impacting care processes, patient outcomes, public perception of safety/ quality of care, and financial revenue
  • Achieving top ranking in publicly reported quality information
  • Maintain all current accreditations and seek new accreditations, as appropriate

• Focus on Care Delivery – SJH will continue to enhance quality through improving care pathways and protocols. Tactics include:
  • Enhancing processes to ensure a seamless transition of care
  • Innovating care delivery models centered on evidence-based practice and academic activities
  • Developing clinical pathways and metrics that improve quality and reduce unnecessary variation in care

Goal 3: SJH will create an environment of compassionate care and exceptional experience for the community it serves

Initiatives:

• Enhance the Patient Experience – Listening to the voices of those directly involved with the care of the patient is key to improving the care experience. Enhancements based on the direct feedback will be incorporated into processes designed to deliver excellent patient experience.  Tactics include:
  • Incorporation of patient, family, significant others, providers, and employee perspectives into clinical care delivery
  • Seeking input from employees to garner greater understanding of the operational workflow

• Establish Consistent Customer Experience – A consistent, excellent customer experience is critical to patient satisfaction and reputation development. SJH will implement  the following tactics across the organization:
  • Implementation of tools and scripts to establish consistent customer experience across the organization
  • Utilization of evidence-based best practices to improve experience

• Creating Infrastructure to Support Positive Customer Experience – The organization will enhance the infrastructure to create an exceptional patient experience using the following tactics:
  • Augmenting the language services offered
  • Increasing data analytics to lead to greater understanding
  • Enhancing the complaint and grievance system
  • Increasing the visibility of enterprise, department, service line scorecards

Operations & Technology

To serve patients, community and employees, SJH must be able to respond and adapt quickly to changing environmental factors and new service models. For SJH to succeed, it will be essential to have the appropriate structures, processes and technologies in place.

Goals:

1. Provide the foundational technologies and operational support to develop and enhance mobile, tele/ remote care tools, and support care outside SJH facilities
2. Redesign and enhance operations to improve efficiency and drive standardization across the organization
3. Ensure the organization can respond appropriately to emergency situations, address the security of vital information and essential technologies and continue to perform critical business and patient care functions in the event of unplanned circumstances

Goal 1: Provide the foundational technologies and operational support to develop and enhance mobile, tele/ remote care tools, and support care outside SJH facilities

Initiatives:

• Enhance Communications Technology – Effective communication is paramount to the disbursement of key information to employees and consumers. Tactics include:
  • Mobile access apps and enterprise-wide text based communication
  • Replacing current website with a modern information management system with interactive functionality, including direct visit booking function
  • Investigate new communication and social media tools for employee engagement and communications

• Maximize technology to engage stakeholders – Robust, interactive, and user-friendly systems and apps will enhance utilization and efficiency. Tactics include:
  • Developing standards for telehealth utilization and offer as part of physician finder
  • Implementing tools to improve care access, including centralized scheduling call center and self-registration

Goal 2: Redesign and enhance operations to improve efficiency and drive standardization across the organization

Initiatives:

• Standardization of Business Functions – Greater operational efficiency with key business functions will increase productivity and reduce redundancy. Tactics include:
  • Automation of purchasing related procedures, including capital requests and purchase orders
  • Enhancement of contract management
  • Optimization of supply chain management

• Enhancement of Human Resources Processes – Enriching the tools employees and managers utilize for human resource business functions will improve efficiency and usability. Tactics include: 
  • Migration of the Human Resources functions to a single platform for a seamless employee experience
  • Enhancement of employee management processes including automated scheduling and payroll
  • Formalization and standardization of SJH policy and procedure processes and ownership

• Continual Opportunity Action Planning (OAP) – Developing an organizational culture of continuous financial management is key to the future success of SJH. Tactics include:
  • Enhancement of budget process
  • Centralized source for departmental and service line financial statistics

Goal 3: Ensure the organization can respond appropriately to emergency situations, address the security of vital information and essential technologies and continue to perform critical business and patient care functions in the event of unplanned circumstances

Initiatives:

• Resiliency to Cybersecurity Attacks – The threat to cyber information is a key concern to healthcare organizations. Tactics to protect the organization from cyber attacks include:
  • Preparing the enterprise for cyber incidents through the development of an organizational cyber team
  • Conducting annual enterprise-wide security drills with all stakeholders

• Preparing for Critical Situations – Preparing the organization for critical situations is key to successful outcomes. Tactics include:
  • Expanding Incident Command System (ICS) training to healthcare executives and medical workforce to meet new CMS requirements and enhance the organizations level of preparedness
  • Educating and training the team on identified preparedness and response gaps
  • Strengthening and sustaining the organization’s ability to prevent, protect against, and mitigate the effects from public health threats
  • Developing digital platform to track and manage emergencie

Finance & Philanthropy

St. Joseph’s Health will continue to focus on strong financial management and enhancement of philanthropic efforts to strengthen the financial health of the system.   This emphasis will allow SJH to continue its mission to provide access to high quality service, achieve strategic priorities, and adapt to the changes in healthcare.

Goals:

1. Generate funding to support organizational priorities through philanthropy
2. Maintain financial strength that enables achievement of the mission

Goal 1: Generate funding to support organizational priorities through philanthropy

Initiatives:

• Driving philanthropic support – Securing philanthropic support is a key mechanism to raise capital for enhancement of operations and investment in capital projects at SJH. Tactics include:
  • Aligning donor and funder interest with system priorities
  • Targeting fundraising appeals and events to grow donor base to reflect SJH service areas
  • Building a workplace culture of philanthropy

• Enhancing funding through grants – The combination of the patient population and the clinical expertise available at SJH make the organization a prime candidate to receive grants. Tactics to optimize the grant potential at SJH include:
  • Formalizing a process for the identification and procurement of grants
  • Operationalizing a process for the execution and reporting of private and public grants

Goal 2: Maintain financial strength that enables achievement of the mission

Initiatives:

• Generate margins through program investments and financial operations – The ability for SJH to thrive will be dependent upon the organization’s ability to generate margin to invest into new programs, growth opportunities, and supporting the mission.  Tactics include:
  • Achieve/ exceed operating budget targets through Organization Action Plan (OAP) efforts
  • Management of capital to invest in key new growth opportunities
  • Streamline financial operations across the health system to drive management efficiencies

• Manage balance sheet to support organizational goals – A strong balance sheet is critical to advance the organization through key programmatic investments, capital improvements, and supporting the mission. Tactics to accomplish this include:
  • Maintain days cash on hand at defined target
  • Maintain, or improve, ratings and outlook by third parties
  • Restructure debt
  • Manage pension funding and investments to enable full funding and elimination of future pension funding obligation