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Scripps Health Builds Efficiencies to Lower Health Care Costs
really understand the business side of what we do,
" said Veronica Zaman,
Corporate Vice President of Human Resources and Learning at Scripps Health. Zaman said that a lot of the perform-
Scripps Health's innovative training pro- grams won them a place in the top five private Learning! 100 winners in 2011. But the training professionals at the California-based health care company did not stop there. With the encouragement of their top management, the company focused on using learning to anticipate changes that might come from new health care reform laws. Faced with cuts to Medicare reimburse-
ments to hospitals, Scripps created the Performance Improvement Certificate Program. This training program utilizes 26 tools to help their employees become more efficient, reduce costly errors, and offset lost revenues.
TEACHING THE BUSINESS SIDE OF MEDICINE Participants in the Performance Improvement Certificate Program are select- ed by company management. They learn data-based tools and techniques to success- fully launch a project, fully develop it, and evaluate it when it has been completed. Since its launch in 2010, participants
have created programs to reduce linen costs, maximize timeliness, accuracy and efficiency for nurses' initial patient assess- ments, and improving the productivity of interventional radiology teams. "We focus on creating employees who
ance issues they have are in some way related to finances. The Performance
raising the bar." Zaman credits senior lead-
ership at Scripps Health for being willing to put money into training at a time when so many companies were pulling back. During the recession, many health care companies cut back on spending in all areas of their business not directly related to patient care. But Scripps Health spends about $30 million per year on learning. The company ties individual per- formance to patient satisfaction. Employees at all levels get bonus incentives for good performance. The company's corporate CEO,
Chris Van Gorder, is strongly invest- ed in using training to help the company stay ahead of competitors. Van Gorder believes in investing in the company's workforce and Scripps maintains a no-layoff phi-
Veronica Zaman, Corporate Vice
President of Human Resources and Learning and Stephanie Becerra,
Learning Leader, Scripps Health, pic- tured with Angeli Primlani (left) and Joe DiDonato (right) EMG
Improvement Certificate Program is designed to teach their employees to think intelligently and creatively about the financial impact of their role on the entire organization.
INVESTING IN TALENT WHEN OTHERS DON'T "You know in today's world, just [imple- menting] best practices isn't where you need to be,
"We focus on creating employees who really understand the business side of what we do.
"
— Veronica Zaman, Corporate Vice President of Human Resources and Learning, Scripps Health
28 May / June 2012 Elearning!
losophy. Managers and training profession- als work diligently at retraining employees who get displaced due to restructuring and downsizing. Scripps spent the last two years reorgan-
izing its entire Center for Learning and Innovation. Instead of having each hospi- tal in the system run their own training program, they instituted a One Scripps program. This made the entire learning system horizontally integrated across every hospital. The company takes pride in being a
" said Zaman. "You need to be
career-destination for people in the health care field. Zaman said that it was not unusual for entry-level employees to grow throughout their entire career by partici- pating in Scripps' Center for Learning and Innovation's programs "Some of those entry level people are now senior execu- tives,
" said Zaman. Learn More:
Experience Scripps Health: http://youtu.be/IaB44z1JE-Y
Hear from Scripps Health: http://youtu.be/VFlBBb0aIqk