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By Scott Bolin, RT(R), CNMT, CRA
I was recently able to visit Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, FL as part of AHRA’s Partners in Learning program, and I would like to begin this article by thanking the Director of Radiology, Dawn Savine; manager, Rachel Johnson; and manager, Enrique Serrano for their tireless efforts in making me feel as if I were a part of their team! I had the pleasure of meeting so many fantastic people during my visit, I could not possibly mention them all.
I come from a 50 bed hospital in Lenoir City, TN that is part of a large heath system, Covenant Health, based in Knoxville. When I found out that I was chosen for the AHRA Partners in Learning program, and where they were going to send me, I immediately thought “how in the world could I relate to such a large hospital?!” Please don’t make the same misconception that I did. I was able to relate to everything they were working on as far as patient safety, zero events, radiation safety, MR safety, quality measures, customer service, and more. It does not matter how large or small of a site you work at; it is all about the patients and your undying effort to be compassionate toward them and to help heal them both in mind and body.
I found all of that at Memorial Regional; they have their customer service hardwired! The customer service mentality is not just embraced by the technologists, nurses, and physicians, but it also extends to administrative staff, environmental services, food services, and parking attendants. The leadership there has done an excellent job in getting everyone to buy into their culture.
I had the opportunity to sit in on one of their radiology team quality meetings and go over their metrics, how and why they chose them, and how they track them. I was most impressed by how they use their data to make immediate improvements.
One of my areas of focus was CT and MRI safety, and discovering how they achieved such an excellent system process. They have a CT clinical coordinator and an MR clinical coordinator who spend equal time at each facility they have. Part of their job is making sure that all of their protocols at each of their five hospitals are identical and that they catch any safety event before it happens by being constantly vigilant of radiation safety and magnetic safety, so all will experience excellent outcomes. I plan on taking what they shared with me back to my health system to hopefully implement some of their strategies to improve my areas.
I would like to thank everyone involved with this experience and I would like to encourage anyone thinking of being mentored, to apply to this program! Thank you, AHRA – this was a once in a lifetime experience!
Scott Bolin, RT(R), CNMT, CRA is the imaging manager at Fort Loudoun Medical Center in Lenoir City, TN. He can be reached at rbolin@covhlth.com.
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