171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
800-424-MUSC
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August 2008
Team Building and Leadership
What does team building and leadership really mean and how do they affect the Children's Hospital and our patients? In June, I discussed how important a health care team was to the Children's Heart Program achieving a top national ranking in US News and World Report. This month I want to discuss two other teams in the Children's Hospital that have had an important impact.
The first team is our hematology-oncology group that is now lead by Dr. Michelle Hudspeth, a former MUSC student who came back to us in 2007 from Johns Hopkins University. She is an expert in bone marrow transplantation (BMT), but also practices general pediatric oncology (cancer management). Under Dr. Hudspeth's leadership, the pediatric oncology group at MUSC has begun coordinating its efforts with pediatric specialists around the state, identifying areas like BMT where MUSC has unique expertise and programs. These efforts lead to a more than 100 percent increase in transplants last year, recruiting both patients who would not have been considered candidates before and some who were going out of state for their care. The increased business has stressed the operational capacity of our inpatient and outpatient Oncology services, but despite that patient satisfaction has gone up, with a 92 percentile ranking on our 7B inpatient service and a 79 percentile ranking in the outpatient clinic. Even more important, despite the large increase in work with the potential for medical problems, BMT mortality has gone down. Such results can only be achieved through a combination of leadership and team work, both of which have been occurring in spades in our hematology-oncology group. Congratulations to Michelle and her team.
The second team is Pediatric Meducare, our transport team for bringing critically ill patients from around the state to MUSC Children's Hospital. On the evening of Saturday, July 11, Meducare performed a special transport to bring a six-week-old infant with critical congenital heart disease to MUSC on ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation, like a heart-lung machine). The baby was transported from Richland Hospital in Columbia, after a prior transport from Greenville Hospital had been forced to divert to Columbia on Thursday due to bad weather, and the baby ended up on ECMO. Although our MUSC team had never performed such a transport, it became clear that no other transport options were available for this infant. Despite the many potential ways to say it couldn't be done, multiple units in the medical center, including the perfusion team, respiratory therapy, nursing, PICU, PCICU and of course, Meducare came together to make this happen. This was a real "can do" effort that paid off with a safe transport, followed by a successful surgical procedure, and ECMO decannulation. Many people contributed to this successful transport, demonstrating incredible teamwork and leadership throughout the Children's Hospital.
The above examples are only two of the many times when leadership and teamwork come together in the Children's Hospital to improve the care of our patients. It always makes me proud to be a part of it.
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J. Philip Saul, MD
Medical Director
Director, Pediatric Cardiology |
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