Chair Update | Dr. Kimberly Boland

• Work from home continues thru July 17; chiefs/we have some discretion on working with their staff, there is a policy in place on telecommuting and a new one is being worked on currently; stay tuned
• Planning to move Greg Fowler in the Chair Ofc to the 1^st floor reception desk in KCPC as well as relocating the mail room to the 1^st floor; working through IT issues now; felt appropriate and best for safety & security in the bldg. especially since there are more divisions on the 1^st floor now; would allow deliveries to come their instead of the 4^th flr; will keep updated
• Recruitment is still ongoing, we are still recruiting in Cardiology, Adolescent Medicine, Hematology/Oncology and other divisions, we have a someone for Dermatology, and Emergency Medicine; we are continuing the virtual/zoom meeting 1^st visits and plan to do 2^nd visits in person
• There are several new committees within NCMG that are being formed – Kim and Steve Hester have been working on their formulation; a Clinical Leadership Committee which will have a range of people within NCMG and an Executive Medical Director Committee of 8 people whose goal is to work on strategy, focus on how to best move forward, who/what areas to recruit in, how to best use telehealth, do outreach moving forward and so on, there may be some in the weeds work but limited
• Regarding changing of work assignments, now there are more approvals and processes on the NHC and UofL side including Provost approval for even changes of .2FTE; this requires weeks of work to process and shepherd through the system; we are now moving to only processing these changes twice a year – July 1 and January 1; if there are needs related to program director roles, education or research or grants/contracts related, those will be looked at on a quarterly basis however the goal is to do these only twice a year
• A request was made to leadership about assistance in getting NHC to push/forward their NHC email to their UofL email accounts due to limited inbox size within NHC and that important emails being lost or not seen; it was noted that this was attempted but met with a firm no related to NHC’s lack of confidence in the UofL IT security; it was noted that NHC allows individual emails to be forwarded so why not all; it was recommended to add the NHC email to cell phones to allow quick and easy access;  it was also noted that a request can be made to increase mailbox size (can request from Karen Coke or IT helpdesk); a suggestion was made to ask that NHC use the UofL email address for faculty and send to both their NHC and UofL email account so important emails would not be missed; leadership indicated that that was something that could be worked on
• LCME Dept Scholarship Reporting for 2020; Ron Paul indicated that the reporting is still need however it needs to be reported within the new system called Folio; all faculty have access to Folio now; the SOM wants annual reports from faculty and with Folio online, all activity added to the database and can be pulled and reports run thereby eliminating some other forms of reporting making it easier than the end of the year push to do the reports; the faculty affairs office plans to provide more info and training in Aug & Sept (there were holdups due to COVID); there are many uses, especially for promotions - for those up for promotion, they should load in data from the past last 3 to 5 years, the rest of the faculty can add all activity normally as they due for their annual review; departments will have access to pull data for reporting and can pull things local global, national, regional and locally; it is a much easier way to do it;  via the chat within the meeting, Sara Multerer noted that much of this info is also needed for the ACGME reporting as well
• NCH fundraiser – Raffle Home & BMW; some divisional champions have stepped up and more are needed; this is part of the annual Festival of Trees and Lights and Snow Ball; there are limited number of tickets to be sold (12,000) and we are being asked to sell a min of 200; more info will be sent and a call for more “champions”; right now the Snow Ball is still set for Nov 21
• The awards were announced for the Top 10 Teaching Faculty and the Top 2 Teaching Divisions which were voted on by all peds and med/peds residents; 60 faculty got at least one vote; Brit Anderson, Dan Arnold, Chris Barton, Scott Bickel, Becca Hart, Natalie Henderson, Cody Penrod, Mary Sandquist, Siddharth Shah, Tamina Singh are the top ten teaching faculty Infectious Diseases and Nephrology are the Top 2 Teaching Divisions
• A comment was made in the virtual meeting chat regarding the use of Bluejeans for meetings since that account was going away; it was noted that we are using Blackboard Collaborate and the Dept has 3 zoom contracts for use

In Kim

• Met Yolanda Burress with NHC and learned of the significant work that NHC is doing around social justice, diversity and is impressed with all the work NHC is are doing which includes their leadership as champions; he made some connections around this initiative and has looped Faye Jones in and looking forward to collaborations
• The NHC clinical effectiveness team is about 5 times larger than the Peds team, all who have all been hired by NHC; they are working on five divisions now; gave a heads up that the team may be working in your units soon
• Kim Boland thanked the chiefs for responding to In and Jenn Evans’ request to provide info related to the QI projects; a team has been set up to review these projects

Clinical Operations Update | Amy Sugg & Susan Friedrich

• Susan indicated that they are reviewing data looking at volumes, scheduling and utilization, working on how to recover from COVID and advance; several slides were shared related to scheduling, visits (including in person and telehealth), progress, consumer market survey results and an action plan
• they are using the enterprise analytic tools which the practice managers have access and data is pulled which can be sorted by many different data points; these are reviewed weekly with leadership who are currently in the weeds with the data; they are expecting to hit volume goals and they are working on figuring out how to continue to hit volume goals; help is appreciated around these strategies; there were some budget volume discrepancies with the data from ULP however, they are set with the number they have unless that number is shown to be wildly off;
• practice managers will be reaching out to chiefs and medical directors to work on closing the gap now and through the end of the year; input is wanted; they are expecting to hit budget regardless of COVID and the changeover from ULP to NCMG;
• key takeaways from the consumer market survey results are that virtual visits will be a constant practice of how we can deliver care safely; marketing will work on sharing how we will safely manage care, masks, gloves, washing hands – how we will protect families; will share our attitude towards healthcare delivery, access and continue our mission to provide exceptional care even during this time
• the action plan will be shared and discussed with chiefs/faculty by the practice mangers, regional directors and directors; online scheduling, fast pass and the wait list function were discussed; EPIC has good tools to use; goal is to have 7 day access to offer no matter the service line; working to market to PCP’s – this may not be in the office but via telehealth – more info to come; looking to do that starting this month and in August and that should drive volume and keep families here and not drive them out of our market
• Dianna Stover will be sending the market survey results out to chiefs to review; please review
• Amy responded to some questions regarding online scheduling; it varies by visit type and specialty and patient needs; My Chart access is needed to do that and help is available to assist patients in getting that set up and with training; NCMG has highest volume access this way to date;
• Amy responded to a statement that some patients who are not local have indicated that they do not want to travel to Louisville for safety concerns; it was noted that the UofL Police and the LMPD work together to protect and secure the area; practices have been given specific verbiage to use with families around this
• Amy responded to questions on how handling barriers for families with tech needs or language needs; this is across all demographics; faculty can get with managers to look at the data; iPads are provided and staff work with those who need help them; they are seeing improvement across the board in this area
• The system directors gave thanked faculty and indicated their appreciation for the faculty’s help to get us where we need to be

Med/Ed Update | Sara Multerer

• Graduation festivities finished off; overall they are happy with the outcome; they were able to showcase the residents/fellows work; thanks to Brittany Luckett, Tara McKinley and Dianna Stover for all the work to make the poster sessions work and the virtual graduation happen
• The new interns arrived; it was not the smoothest onboarding however this crew seems easy-going
• They are regrouping to discuss the virtual recruitment process
• Noted that the Folio program that was mentioned earlier in the meeting related to department/faculty scholarly activity is also needed for the ACGME so faculty were encouraged to use that and keep it updated for new publications, national and regional work etc. from January to date
• Faculty Development sessions tripled attendance with the virtual sessions; the PIRATES group have a session in August; they will plan on some limited in person sessions with virtual sessions as well; another session is planned in July around structural racism; stay tuned for more info

Research | Jan Sullivan

• Hopefully everyone received an email that Dianna/Peds News sent out from the PIRATES team; all faculty are encouraged to participate in the survey regardless of their work assignment in research as it also pertains to scholarly activity; the survey is posted within the chat section of this faculty meeting as well
• Work continues related to the Research Integration Agreement with NCMG and they are hopeful to finalize it this month; once it is finalized, they will move together with the final organizational structure and the core committees to develop and finalize processes.
• Research activities resumed as of June 30 with the exception of Community Engagement research activities; they are working on those processes; one faculty member has a partially funded NIH grant that falls under community engagement and they are encouraged to obtain approval from Craig McClain’s office to move forward; there is a specific application for this.
• When doing research in the Novak Center NHC facilities policies are to be followed since the building is now owned by NHC; they allow for essential visits only for monitor and audit visits; keep Jan informed around this and if you have questions; NHC is keeping Jan up to date on their steps (currently they are on Step 3 of 7 steps); Jan will keep faculty posted on the 7 steps
• Michele Stevenson noted a survey regarding faculty development with research and encouraged participation; there is an August 17 research conference which will help faculty learn how to turn their turn their daily work into scholarly activity
• Jan will give Grand Rounds this week on "Pediatric Research: Taking It to the Next Level"