Issues & Initiatives - Pardon Our Appearance

Construction can be temporarily inconvenient, but the impact of our growth on our community will be permanent

If you’ve painted a room, tiled a hallway or added on to your house, you know the feeling. You’re in the middle of the project, and you’re starting to lose focus. Then you remember why you’re doing the project in the first place—to make your house nicer, or to give your child a brighter room. That gives you incentive to keep going.

When I see our current expansion at LVH–Cedar Crest, I feel anticipation and excitement. I see the great progress we’re making, and, like you, I know our revitalized hospital will help us better serve people in our community.

Right now, you might see something different—inconvenience. You might hear it from a patient or visitor who had to walk farther than he would’ve liked, or who was uncomfortable using valet parking. A patient in our hospital today isn’t comforted to know that better things are coming 18 months from now.

The current construction makes our jobs challenging, but our goal remains the same: to create the best healing environment for our patients. Recently, more than 700 colleagues brainstormed 311 tips for keeping patients satisfied. We called it the “One Thing Challenge,” asking colleagues to tell us the one thing they can do today to improve patient satisfaction. Some of those tips:

• “Look for opportunities to help.”
  –Sharon Agonis, program coordinator
• “Always give the most honest answer.”
  –Janette Rehrig, secretary

• “Take time to listen.”
  –Patti Kopko, case manager

Here are other things to remember:

• Express your excitement—Let our patients know about the resources we have to care for them now, and how our growth will give our community a higher level of care in the future.
• Ask for help—If you encounter an uncomfortable situation with a patient or visitor, talk to your supervisor or a service excellence coordinator.
• Engage yourself—Read the weekly e-mail construction updates and share the information with colleagues and patients. If you have any ideas for how we can improve during construction, please share them by calling 610-402-CARE.

We’re doing our best to complete construction safely and efficiently. We’ve accelerated the timetable for the first of two parking decks at the front of the hospital. It was originally scheduled to open in January; it will now open by late fall. We’re also looking into accelerating construction on the second deck.

As with any remodeling project, there still will be challenges. Very shortly, we will begin a yearlong project to improve traffic flow on Cedar Crest Blvd. We will do this with as little disruption as possible, but there will still be some inconveniences. Long term, this will create much smoother traffic flow into and out of our hospital.

Before you know it, our new bridge connecting The Center for Advanced Health Care and the John and Dorothy Morgan Cancer Center will be complete. We’ll be able to care for more patients in our revamped emergency department, Burn Center, intensive care and medical-surgical units, and more.

Rest assured, the inconveniences we might experience now are temporary. The impact our growth will have on the health and well-being of our community is permanent. It will ensure we’ll be here, caring for our friends and neighbors, for generations to come. Thank you for your cooperation, your patience and your inspiration.

Lou Liebhaber, Chief Operating Officer

ARTICLE TOOLS: