CEO outlines changes underway at Ochsner St. Mary

Two hundred and twelve degrees is the temperature at which water boils. It is also the title of a motivational book and is a part of what Ochsner St. Mary’s CEO, Fernis Leblanc, is hoping to bring to the newly titled medical center.
The concept behind this idea presented in the book is that water is hot at 211 degrees, but at 212 degrees water boils and creates steam. That one degree of difference “makes steam that can power a locomotive,” Leblanc said.
“So with that little extra effort, like touching a patient, or picking some trash up off the floor making the hospital look good, you can go from good to great, ordinary to extraordinary. That’s the power of 212 degrees and that is something everyone at the hospital is going to read and live by,” Leblanc said.
Leblanc said that “last week I challenged the staff with a new goal and it’s around patient experience. We’ve had good performance in the past, but it hasn’t been great, so I challenged the staff saying that we are going to set the new bar and we are going to be at the 90th percentile when it comes to patient experience. We are going to get there and we are going to stay there.
“Because I don’t just want to be the best in the Ochsner’s system, I want to be the best in the country,” Leblanc said.
The entire transition for the facility to be fully functioning as an Ochsner’s facility “should be about an eight month transition that is going to complete in May of 2020,” Leblanc said.
“Right now, we are in the process of transition planning and orientation, we are looking at infrastructures and we have IT and security poring over the system and the hospital right now going from top to bottom, looking at all the different computers we have, the software, and the wires in the building. There is a lot of pre-work leading up to the transition,” Leblanc said.
“We are dealing with the exterior of the facility, like painting the curbs and washing the building. The reason I want to do that is because I want to make the hospital shine, like a new penny. I think it’s important for the community and the employees. I want the employees to get out of their cars, walk through the parking lot, and feel that high level of pride, saying ‘this is great, I’m going to have to step up my game when I go into this hospital and take care of my patients’.”
Leblanc says the new technology coming to the facility will give that extra degree as well. By the end of the transition in May, the hospital should have Ochsner’s system, titled Epic, fully functional. Epic is Ochsner’s EMR system, or electronic medical records.
“This is where the doctors and nurses put the patient’s information. This is not only a good thing for our patients, but it is a good thing for our doctors and nurses. It means that our patients and their doctors will have access to their medical records no matter what facility they are at, those records are going to follow them,” Leblanc said
Other technologies included in the plans are telehealth, which is where patients can conference with doctors at other facilities using a monitor; and telecoms, which will put monitors in rooms of patients that are fall risks so nurses can monitor to ensure they don’t try to get out of bed on their own.
Ochsner also has a partnership with Apple to track patients’ vitals and blood pressure through electronic communication devices that can partner with your phone that updates in the patient’s electronic medical records.
“This is some of the great technology that we are going to have coming shortly to the hospital, some of the proactive ways to keep them well and keep them out of the hospital,” Leblanc said.
Leblanc said one of the problems with the hospital as it is today is low volume due to patients having to go out of town because the facility doesn’t offer services they need. “We need access, we need docs.
“I am here to tell you today that we are working hard on that, even though we have only been here a few weeks, we are already making some ground on recruiting local physicians and local specialists to the area. That’s something we aren’t going to stop doing. We know that is important, so people don’t have to leave this area to get the care that they need,” Leblanc said.
“This is our commitment to the community,” Leblanc said, “with what I’m talking about with this community health and access, growing our physicians and letting our patients stay local, not having to travel. It’s part of our job to make sure we have a hospital and a facility that is world class so when you are recruiting people to better the community we want to be that pillar, that you can say, come to Morgan City, we have a great healthcare institution, we have a great hospital.”