Engaging Excellence News
Engaging Excellence Final Reports
10/ 30/2009
The President and his Leadership Council hear final reports from the Engaging Excellence Implementation Teams
Steering Committee Final Report 
Engaging Excellence - PatientsFirst!
6/ 17/2009
Engaging Excellence - PatientsFirst!
Online appointment registration now available for SUNY Upstate employees
The department of Patient Access Services in conjunction with the PatientsFirst! initiative, is pleased to announce a new service available to Upstate employees. Upstate employees as patients can now register online in Self-Serve for appointments at University Hospital-based services (includes University Health Care Center, Joslin Center, Regional Oncology Center, Surgical Specialties at 550 Harrison Street, and Pediatrics at Physician's Office Building). You can register yourself, spouse or your dependents. By registering online, you can skip in-person registration and go directly to the service area on the day of your appointment. Please go to the Information menu in Self-Serve to register or to learn more about the service or call Shelley White at 4-5050.
Engaging Excellence: PatientsFirst!
6/ 11/2009
Engaging Excellence: PatientsFirst!
The Regional Oncology Center sponsored the annual National Cancer Survivors Day celebration on Sunday, June 7, at the Liverpool Holiday Inn for 500 cancer survivors and their families from all across Central New York. The event featured a luncheon, live music, and activities for children.
“This gathering is a salute to all those who are fighting cancer,” said Tina Evans, of the Regional Oncology Center. “It’s an opportunity to gather together and share survival stories and celebrate the work that is being done to help us win the fight against cancer.”
Tina was joined by many of the ROC staff, nurses, physicians, and hospital administrators who volunteered and helped to organize this amazing event. The pictures in our photo gallery tell the story a heart-warming event, in the celebration of life!
view the photos
Global Health Education at Upstate Medical University
3/ 17/2009
Global Health Education at Upstate Medical University
SUNY Upstate students are world travelers. Many have an impressive background that includes some type of international volunteer or focused educational experience that has piqued their interest in global health. Our students have gone to Guatemala, Mexico, Tanzania, the Sudan, Thailand, Ireland and many other countries to offer their help in hospital and clinics as well as other health care settings. Our curriculum offers elective courses taught by faculty in the Center for Bioethics and Humanities that examine the ethical issues of international and global health as well as four levels of medical Spanish. With the introduction of the Masters in Public Health Program, a collaborative effort with Syracuse University, we anticipate that there will be additional courses in global health history and policy that will be available to our students as well.
The Office of Community Outreach and Global Health Education in the division of Student Affairs works with students interested in participating in health care experiences in an international setting. Our website has a comprehensive list of organizations, institutions and programs (www.upstate.edu/currentstudents/academic/outreach/) that offer meaningful, educational outreach opportunities from which our students may select an experience that is compatible with their interests and level of expertise.
The creation of The Office of Community Outreach and Global Health Education was a recommendation from the Engaging Excellence Student Team that was implemented in May 2008. Under the leadership of Dr. Susan Stearns, and Program Director, Andrea Liefer (who is a VISTA volunteer), this office is a wonderful resource for students and faculty alike.
IMT Breakfast Celebration
2/ 18/2009
Engaging Excellence
IMT Steering and Implementation Team
Breakfast Celebration
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Wow! We’ve got a lot to celebrate with all of these teams this morning! The executive team is impressed not only by the scope and number of your accomplishments – but also by the sheer impact your work has on every single one of us who learn, work and are served in every corner of our university and hospital.
Equally impressive is the process in which your accomplishments have occurred. Your teams epitomize the spirit by which engaging excellence was intended – that is, with cross-functional teams engaging IT expertise with process and functional expertise across all levels within the university to ensure that we have the best solutions for our technological requirements, not just for now, but in looking toward the future as well.
Information technology is a crucial aspect in our infrastructure that defines us. We truly do need to keep our technology “cutting edge” to keep pace with the ever changing needs of our students, patients, and employees. That is exactly why the executive team approved all of the IT recommendations from Engaging Excellence. Yes, we have had to defer some critical projects – EMR to name an important one – but these projects are still in our sights. We are still working on finding funding to continue to invest in our infrastructure – in our future.
We’ve brought you together to celebrate and highlight the teams and their accomplishments. The IT Engaging Excellence Team is the largest of the six – with a total of 70 people – impressive teams with impressive outcomes!
Special thanks to the IT Steering Committee, and to Terry Wagner, for her leadership, – who would tell you that credit goes to her incredibly talented team. Special thanks are also extended to those who chaired and co-chaired these many teams.
Our first team is the
RESEARCH / INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM
Chaired by RJ Dollard and Frank Middleton
This team’s accomplishments include our Campus Network Upgrade, which includes an upgraded network infrastructure for Upstate’s research and academic facilities with faster, more modern network equipment. The new network is faster and more secure, and can now run high bandwidth applications such as streaming video.
• New wiring has been installed in CAB, Weiskotten Hall and Weiskotten Hall Addition. Old wiring was removed.
• All network switches were replaced without interruption or downtime for building occupants
• Hundreds of wireless access points were installed. Wireless service is now available in academic buildings for students, faculty, staff and visitors to Upstate’s campus. Guest wireless service is also available for patients and families in University Hospital. Which Dr. Seidberg reports is a huge hit with our patients and families!
There is also an article in a recent Upstate Update describing the project. This was a combined effort of Network Services and Telecommunications, again accomplished through the talents of many of the IT staff, lead by Don Roller and Joe Ziemba.
Network Services (Don Roller, Manager)
Jeff Hamlin
Dave French
Dan Healy
Oleg Soyko
Carl Pettengill
Telecommunications (Joe Ziemba, Manager)
Rob Schroder
Dave Shatrau
Paul Frajda
Dave Tackman
Remote Access
• New security appliance was installed to provide a more flexible and easier solution for remote access to network resources and applications.
• Faculty and staff can use personally owned computers and securely connect to web applications and in many cases directly connect to their office computers.
• Solution will be extended to include University Hospital staff for secure access to Clinical and Business Applications
o For example, on call pharmacists already using solution to approve orders from home (Employee Satisfaction Initiative)
Thanks to RJ Dollard and Mike Tubbs for leading the remote access project.
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DECISION SUPPORT TEAM
Chaired by Grace VanNortwick and Steve DeFazio
This team was responsible for automating the Decision Support submission of data to the Faculty Practice Solution Center, which is now running live.
The reports generated by the Faculty Practice Solutions Center will be our main productivity bench marking data base that will be used not only by the MSGs, but by administration as well. The advantage to this data base is that:
• The only participants are academic medical universities, so the data has been defined and scrubbed to give a more meaningful comparison specifically for academic medical universities
• It allows us to easily slice and dice the data down to several layers of detail and build custom reports specific to our needs
• It is useful for contract negotiations with third party payors and University Hospital
• It will provide access to information that will help drive important strategic decisions
Special thanks to Chris Stone from IT and Bridget Flanagan from UMAS who put a great a deal of effort into this project.
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ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Chaired by Joe Smith, Darryl Geddes
Electronic Communications Team
• Two early wins for this team were web projects focused on improving Upstate’s web resources for attracting and recruiting faculty.
o In consultation with Dr. Trief’s Office, a” Join the Faculty “website was created to introduce prospective faculty to Upstate and the Central New York Community.
o Work on introducing a publicly accessible web staff directory is nearly complete – most of the technical challenges have been overcome and the project is about to be presented to Human Resource, Student Affairs and Leadership Council for final approval.
Our budget challenges have deferred two other team projects:
• Content Management
• Digital Signage
Both are very worthwhile and needed technologies, but are expensive to acquire. Initial plans have been developed, but projects are on hold pending budget allocation.
INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY TEAM
Chaired by Joe Smith and Dr. Sara Grethlein
• The Student Response System technology has been acquired and is just starting to be used. Clickers are available for instructional use throughout all our colleges. The system is easy to use and highly portable.
o The technology is also being applied to administrative activities – each week the College of Medicine Admission Committee uses "clickers" to allow for anonymous voting on applicants to the college. Committee members on both the Syracuse and Binghamton campuses enter their vote on clickers - the clickers can work over the internet – and the results are combined and instantaneously presented.
o The Graduate Medical Education Office has been using a set of clickers with a "Competency Based Conference for Fellows" for the past several months.
• The enterprise level course management system has made steady but slow progress. The software and hardware have been installed, but the position to support the system is on hold. A College of Medicine course, Microscopic Anatomy, is trying out the software and represents the first steps toward a wider pilot of the system.
• Enhanced Video Streaming – the work plan has been submitted and a technical team is actively reviewing and evaluating several systems, with the goal of deploying enhanced capability by Fall 2009.
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THE CLINICAL ENTERPRISE TEAM
Chaired by Terry Wagner and Dr. Neal Seidberg
• The Clinical Enterprise IT governance structure was revamped with greater emphasis on senior leadership participation, and on driving quality improvement initiatives
• The CE Team implemented a portfolio planning process to ensure multidisciplinary review of significant project requests, called the Project Review and Assessment committee, chaired by Maureen Cummings. They have reviewed 263 requests since November 2007, with the great majority of projects approved!
• This team also implemented a wireless network-based location tracking for multiple purposes, including equipment tracking, refrigeration monitoring, and patient/family access. A multi-disciplinary team helped make this a success as well: Mark Zeman, Don Roller, Dan Healy; RJ Dollard, Don Sadeckas and Dave Eck all worked on various aspects of these projects.
o Kudos again to the wireless network for families and patients – big hit!
• There has been numerous quality driven initiatives, including full deployment of Nursing documentation throughout UH – with a multi-disciplinary team including Susan Berry, Barb LaCasse, Joy Ganley and Barb Bennet. Big thanks to Katie Mooney and Maureen Cummings for their support of the project.
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And, last but not least, …
Student /Admin System Team
Chaired by Julie White, Terry Wagner
This team has worked to review the many systems utilized across the colleges to gather various aspects of student data, and has streamlined the systems, functionality, and output. Again, a multi-functional team including staff from different divisions within student affairs, IT staff, and end users came together to improve and strengthen our processes and systems.
Thank you for your commitment to Upstate, to Engaging Excellence, and to each other. You make Upstate a great place, and we are honored to work with you and grateful for all you do.
The first quarterly President’s Town Hall Meeting was held on Tuesday, January 13 in UH 6500, with a standing-room only audience.
2/ 4/2009
The first quarterly President’s Town Hall Meeting was held on Tuesday, January 13 in UH 6500, with a standing-room only audience. Presenters included Dr. Smith, Dr. Thompson, Mr. Schaengold, Ms. Mooney, and Dr. Duggan. A question and answer session followed the presentations. Please follow the link to view the town hall in its entirety, or you can view the power point presentations by clicking on the link below and then clicking each PDF presentation.
http://www.upstate.edu/excellence/intra/forums.php
(Intranet Only)
January 13, 2009 -President's Open Forum on Clinical Enterprise
1/ 16/2009
The link below will take you to the January 13, 2009 President's Open Forum on Clinical Enterprise:
http://www.upstate.edu/excellence/intra/forums.php
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