Excelling at Excellence

Story by John Sackett

In healthcare, everything we do has profound significance. Often, there is just one chance to get something right with no opportunity for a redo. And it is no exaggeration to say that performing our work to the very highest safety and quality standards can mean the difference between life and death. So how do we ensure we excel in our work?

First, we recognize that it takes a personal commitment to achieve excellence – so we make sure to hire team members who align with our RISES Values. Knowing each team member is dedicated to actively demonstrating Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship can feel especially significant if, like me, you feel that God has given each one of us a specific purpose to fulfill. Embracing our calling to work in healthcare helps give us the drive to maintain the highest quality standards and the perspective to offer compassionate care to every person, every time.

Second, we commit to working together – for united teams
are far more successful than individual people, departments or even service lines working separately. To ensure we can deliver on our promise to provide integrated and comprehensive
care, interdisciplinary team members discuss how they can continuously improve, streamline or boost efficiency. By seeing our diverse perspectives and insights as strengths, we create a culture of respect within our team that enhances our ability to provide healing to our community.

And finally, we manage our work through a standard approach so that we document, measure and show our progress on specific goals. Excellence is not a vague theory. Excellence can be seen
in the sets of clearly defined, operational objectives displayed transparently on our Communication Board graphs. Every team member can clearly see how achieving our targets affects our service and improves patient outcomes. We want to make it easy to know how to provide world-class service and patient care.

Putting all of this together, we know that “we are the we” – a cohesive team working to fulfill our Mission to extend God’s care through the ministry of physical, mental and spiritual healing. By devoting ourselves to excellence, we can then offer it consistently to our patients and help

Adventist HealthCare be a trusted source of healthcare. Thank you for being part of our team and providing hope to all those who are yearning for excellence in their most vulnerable moments of need.