A word from Dr. Lisa Smithgall, chief nursing executive Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Ballad Health Nursing Newsletter! As your chief nursing executive, I am thrilled to introduce this quarterly newsletter – a vibrant platform designed exclusively for you, our nursing staff. Our vision for this newsletter is simple yet profound: to inform, inspire, and encourage dialogue. In this edition, you’ll learn about an initiative in which we’ve incorporated your feedback and partnered with IT Clinical Informatics to help streamline workflows and eliminate unnecessary hurdles when using Epic. Your input matters. Based on last year’s electronic health record survey, our nursing and IT leadership collaborated to enhance elements of the EHR, resulting in positive impacts on nursing workflow. Notably, we successfully piloted Rover devices in a medical surgical unit, which significantly saved time for nursing team members when interacting with the EHR. Additionally, we adopted Flowsheet MACROS during the November Epic quarterly upgrade….

Ballad Health’s educational classes for Wednesday, Jan. 17, have been canceled due to inclement weather and potentially dangerous road conditions. An inclement weather message line – 423-431-1062 – has also been created to check the status of classes. A recorded message will alert callers if classes will be hosted as scheduled, or if the decision has been made to cancel based on weather concerns. NOTE: Exceptions to Ballad Health’s class cancellation policy are the systemwide classes and facility classes for new team member orientation, which will not be canceled. More info The Organizational Development team can be contacted by emailing OrgDevEducation@balladhealth.org or calling 423-325-8484. Epic questions can be emailed to EpicTraining@balladhealth.org. Clinical Education can be contacted at 423-431-5444 or ClinicalEducationDept@balladhealth.org. You can also reach out to the contact person listed in the Learning Management System (HealthStream) for the course. The inclement weather cancelation policy includes Epic classes and all American Heart Association classes at any location (BLS, ACLS, PALS, etc.)….

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Kingsport native and community leader Julie Bennett has been elected by the Board of Directors of Ballad Health to serve as its lead independent director and vice chair. Bennett replaces David Lester, of Bristol, Virginia, who has served in this role since the creation of Ballad Health nearly five years ago. “Our entire team is grateful for the nearly five years of dedicated service David has given Ballad Health as lead independent director and vice chair,” said Ballad Health Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alan Levine. The lead independent director is a critical leadership role on the board, providing counsel and guidance to the CEO and ensuring community voices are present and heard as the board contemplates important decisions. During Lester’s term as lead director, Ballad Health saw upgrades in its bond ratings, reaching the highest levels in Ballad Health, Wellmont Health System or Mountain States Health Alliance history, with credit…

Do you know someone here at Ballad Health who routinely goes above and beyond the normal call of duty to help others? If so, please consider nominating them for the Scott and Nikki Niswonger Servant’s Heart Award. The nomination period is open for all Ballad Health team members through Dec. 31. About the award Servant’s Heart Awards are given out in four categories: frontline team members, leadership, physicians and volunteers. This is a great way for us to celebrate the outstanding work being done every day by team members within our health system. A Servant’s Heart Award winner is someone who models the Ballad Health values on a daily basis and who always finds ways to help others, from co-workers to patients to visitors. Does this person give freely of their time outside of work through church, civic groups, schools or a local nonprofit? Do they routinely go the extra mile to help others? Do…

The Ballad Health Epic journey has moved us to one electronic health record for much of the organization. There are plenty of benefits to using Epic, including: Clinicians can see a patient’s complete story. Inpatient and outpatient charts are combined, increasing patient safety. Patients are empowered with Epic’s online health management tool, MyChart. With one electronic health record, more of the patient’s protected health information (PHI) is now available for access for treatment, payment and healthcare operations, as permitted by HIPAA. PHI is not just the clinical data but also includes demographic information such as name, address, telephone number, birthdate, Social Security Number, email address, visit and medical record numbers, admit/discharge date, etc. It’s important to remember the HIPAA education you’ve received and the Ballad Health policies related to use, access and disclosure of PHI. Before you search for and/or access information in Epic, ask yourself if you need to access the information to perform…

Attention Legacy Wellmont team members: You now have less than two months to save important emails and documents that are older than six months to a location outside of Outlook. In January 2017, legacy Mountain States transitioned to an email retention policy which purged (deleted) all emails older than six months from team members’ Outlook mailboxes. Now this policy will extend to legacy Wellmont team members. Email messages and documents attached to emails in Outlook from more than six months ago will begin the purging process on Oct. 1, 2019. Emails older than six months in custom Outlook folders will also be purged. This policy allows us to better manage Outlook and maintain storage, and is safer for security purposes.   INSTRUCTIONS There are three ways to save your emails outside of Microsoft Outlook For any of these options, you may use the following to select multiple emails: Shift key + click selects multiple items…

KINGSPORT, Tenn. – As part of our annual Niswonger Children’s Hospital Classic, we’ve got the Tennessee Big Shots golf competition – a World Long Drive professional competition – coming to Cattails at MeadowView in Kingsport this Sunday and Monday. It’s free and family-friendly, and the public is invited. The finals on Monday will even be televised live on the Golf Channel. This is a chance to see some of golf’s biggest hitters crushing 400-yard drives, an even more impressive sight when it’s up-close and in person as opposed to watching on television. The competition will feature 36 men based on World Long Drive rankings, along with eight women. Included in Sunday’s festivities, which go from about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., is a junior clinic by the Tennessee Golf Association, and spectators can enjoy food trucks, music, golf-related vendors and fun activities from the Greater Kingsport Family YMCA. Four food trucks plus Kona Ice will…

JOHNSON CITY and KINGSPORT, Tenn. – Influenza activity is now widespread in the Tri-Cities region. Just this week, both Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System saw flu numbers drastically increase, prompting both health systems to place visitation restrictions at all hospitals in order to protect patients. Mountain States and Wellmont are asking anyone younger than 12 and anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms to refrain from visiting patients in the hospital at this time. Flu-like symptoms include cough, fever, body aches, headache, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, chills and fatigue. These restrictions are in place much earlier this flu season due to the rapid increase of influenza across the region, which matches the state and national trend. During the week of Dec. 3, Mountain States and Wellmont hospitals recorded 54 positive flu cases. The following week, that number more than doubled to 140 positive cases. “We’ve seen a sharp increase in flu cases over the…