NOVATO -- Employees at Sutter Health's Novato Community Hospital are exceptionally engaged with their work because "most of them live in this community," said Brian Alexander, chief administrative officer.
When an employee is interacting with a patient, "there's a very high chance that the two are somehow personally connected. It's a friend or neighbor; it's someone at your kid's school or on the baseball team. That kind of connection naturally leads to a great degree of care and dedication."
Employees not only feel good about the work they do at the hospital, but they also take pride in the work they do out in the community. In addition to providing approximately $7 million in uncompensated health care to underinsured and uninsured community members annually, the company also sponsors fundraising activities and encourages employee involvement in the March of Dimes March for Babies and The American Heart Association Walk, and promotes individual employee participation in fundraising events.
The organization also partners with Novato Unified School District to send nurses to schools and provide services to students with special health care needs. There are children in the community, such as those with diabetes, who have to have a nurse on-site in order for them to attend class. But schools are strapped for money and need to spend their funds on things such as textbooks.
"We didn't want these kids to have to take another option, such as home schooling, so we were happy to step up to the plate and provide services for our school district," Mr. Alexander said.
The hospital staff is inspired by a sense of dedication and care for the community, but they are also engaged in their work because of the high degree of ownership and control over what needs to be done. "Toyota has developed a great system of engaging front-line staff, so we decided to implement a system based upon that," Mr. Alexander said. "Front-line employees serve as specialists in putting together teams to identify an issue and then to come up with a solution and implement it. We empower employees to deliver quality at the source."
