Minutes of the Greater Philadelphia Area HUGS Meeting

12/11/09

Virtual/Live Meeting

HUG Meeting Participants

Lori Berger (Evangelical Community Hospital), Rose Burti (Allied services), Jennifer Donaldson (HealthStream), Tracy Fragassi (Aria Health), Michele Furdyna (Reading), Luann Garland (Hanover HealthCare Plus/Hanover Hospital), Jack Getty (Main Line Health), Steve Gordon (HealthStream), Angela Hummel (Evangelical Community Hospital), Karen McLaughlin (Holy Spirit Health System), Shirley Meyer Speth (Allied Services), Terri Sallurday (Allied Services), Anne-Marie Sawyer (Holy Spirit Health System), Tina Warholic (Holy Spirit Health System), Sue Swails (Holy Spirit Health System), Kellie Wilson (Holy Spirit Health System).

Call to Order

Lori Berger, HUG leader, called the virtual meeting to order at 9:05 a.m. Lori thanked everyone for participating and then had each member introduce themselves by sharing their name, organization, job title and role with HealthStream/HLC. Jennifer Donaldson, Customer Programs Manager at HealthStream, was also part of today’s meeting and welcomed HUG participants.

Members had a chance to ask questions. A member asked some questions about reversioning and Jennifer indicated that she will share a PowerPoint that describes the key information. She will send that to Lori, who will send it along to HUGs participants. Please note that this PowerPoint can also be found on the Insight Into Action Philadelphia HUG group’s minutes for September 25th, 2009. Lori then asked if PALS was ready for purchasing. Steve indicated that they have permission to offer PALS. It will be cognitive only. Steve explained how this will work.

Competency Center

Lynn Howe from HealthStream provided a detailed overview of the Competency Center. She described the most pressing problems that healthcare educators face and shared the solution that HealthStream provides via the Competency Center. She shared the dictionary and reviewed organizational and clinical competencies that employees have in common. The dictionary is broken down into service lines as well. She explained the limitations of what some hospitals do with competency checklists and how much more effective the competency center might be. There is a competency tab within HealthStream. Within the document section, users can link procedures so that the learners have more information available. HealthStream has partnered with Lippincott’s Nursing Procedures and Skills. The Competency Center is completely integrated with Lippincott. Notes can also be displayed in the comments box to keep a record of feedback. She then reviewed the other ways that the Competency Center can be used to track performance for employees, and highlighted what an administrator could do to provide reports and other information in the system (including record-keeping and other feedback/notes). There are manager options as well as peer review options within the HealthStream Competency Center. This information can then be used in a formal performance appraisal.

Community Site Demo

Jennifer Donaldson then provided an overview of the community site. The idea is that we would have online networking opportunities. To get into the site, each HUG member was sent an email in October 2009 with our credentials. If HUG members do not have that email, they should contact Jennifer Donaldson. She reviewed each tab on the home page. The idea tab is where we can post ideas and then others can make additional comments. Users can vote on enhancements. Users can join discussions and write new posts. Our Philadelphia HUG Group is listed under the Groups Tab. Lori Berger, the HUG Leader, must accept you into the group. The path is Groups>Northern HUG>Philadelphia HUG. So, we have our own discussion group that can only be viewed by our Philadelphia HUG participants. She demonstrated how to post discussions, adding polls and then adding videos, etc. She pointed out the “bread crumbs” as a better tool than the browser back button. Everyone has the ability to upload a new file and download files as well. Our minutes are posted on our Philadelphia HUG site. Lori strongly encouraged our HUGs members to subscribe to the group and Jennifer reminded the listeners that when we start a discussion it defaults to us subscribing to the thread. You can select “email me when someone replies” and you will get an email alert.

What’s New at HealthStream

Steve Gordon gave everyone an update about what is new at HealthStream. He mentioned several topics. Steve indicated that E-Catalog is now up and running and provides the ability to search the course catalog online. Users can preview content and would not need to call their sales representative to be able to view courses. Users can check out an entire course and can forward it to others that need to view it. There is also a link to request pricing. Steve encouraged everyone to check this out. If you have any questions or problems, Jennifer Ott is the manager of E-Catalog and can provide the required credentials to users. A question was posed as to why it was necessary to have other users get credentials when a course is forwarded. This is to protect proprietary content.

Steve also indicated that there is other new content:

  • PALS is now available and can be purchased. Users need to contact their sales rep. PALS comes on a disk and Part I is the cognitive portion and Part II will still be classroom-based.
  • APEX. The Hemisphere Stroke Competency Series is now available for purchase.
  • Culture Vision is not available and is a resource for providers when dealing with different cultures.
  • The HAI library is now complete and comes in 2 different formats (CE and non-CE credit versions).
  • Several courses from APS are available for resident education.

Best Practice Session/Q&A

A best practice session was led by Angela Hummel. Luann from Hanover Hospital is successfully using Easy Scan and can serve as a resource for others that would like to learn more about it. They have instituted an education badge which is bar-coded.

Jack Getty from Mainline is seeking ideas and information from other organizations that have a social networking policy. Currently their system prohibits all social sites, except for Linked In.

Luann wanted to know if the HUGs meeting being held at Summit could be a virtual meeting to accommodate those that cannot attend Summit. Jennifer will be checking in to that.

The HUGs meeting will be held on May 19th at Summit. Other members are encouraged to network/connect with one other during the other days of Summit.

Steve Gordon strongly encouraged members to attend Summit and that the conference has a lot to offer participants.

Adjournment

Lori indicated that our next meeting will be held at Abingdon and that she will coordinate with Mark P. about the details for our Spring HUGs meeting.

Meeting was adjourned at 11:05 am.

Submitted by,

Angela Hummel