Gerard van Grinsven (left) joined Henry Ford Health System in June2006 as the president and chief executive officer of Henry Ford West Bloomfield (Michigan) Hospital. The $360-million, 300-bed hospital, the newest in the system, is attached to the Henry Ford Medical Center-West Bloomfield. The hospital opened with 191 beds in March 2009, with the additional 109 beds coming in 2011.
You came to the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital after more than 24 years in the luxury hospitality industry worldwide, most recently as the vice president and area general manager of the Ritz-Carlton hotels in Dearborn, Cleveland, St. Louis and Philadelphia. The idea of transitioning from hotels and an exceptional guest experience to hospitals and an exceptional patient experience is an intriguing one.
The Henry Ford Health System mission and vision are both patient-centered and remarkably similar to the Ritz-Carlton’s guest-centered approach. We want every patient who comes through our doors to feel like a guest. Over the past few years, I’ve been working with Henry Ford Health System to apply the concepts of the Ritz-Carlton Re-Born Program, the philosophy of service that I initiated at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn in 2002, to its program of hiring and training team members. Both Henry Ford and I are deeply committed to making the system the Ritz-Carlton of health care, and I’m delighted to be part of the team that is working to bring that about.
The goal of the Ritz-Carlton philosophy was to provide an unparalleled guest experience, and it was so successful that it won several civic awards and brought the Dearborn hotel into the top 10 for guest and employee satisfaction within a year of its launch. What elements of the philosophy will you concentrate on to create an unparalleled patient experience?
The most important ingredient in creating a high level of patient satisfaction is developing a positive working environment for your staff. If your employees feel as though they are being treated with trust, respect and dignity—if they feel empowered to make decisions—the service they provide to patients in turn will be exceptional.
As the president and CEO, you took the lead in planning and designing the West Bloomfield hospital. What were some of the elements you focused on in that process?
We knew we had to create clear priorities in building this facility to ensure the end product reflected our values. To that end, we created what we call “The Four Filters.” These are specifically ranked priorities that we used to make decisions while building the facility and we continue to use to make decisions at all levels in our hospital. They are: 1. Safety, 2. Compassionate Care, 3. Memorable Experiences and 4. Efficiency. Having this clear hierarchy of values made it easier to consistently make decisions that were aligned with our vision. In addition, we tried to think as innovatively as possible. For example: The food. We intended from the beginning to make the food in this hospital the best in the country. Deep-fryers and freezers have been banished from our kitchens. Ingredients are fresh, and all meals are prepared on demand. In the old days food was not only nourishment but medicine as well. It was part of the healing process. We feel very strongly that we must be very pro-active through food and educate the members of our communities on how a proper diet and well-prepared food can help them avoid or better manage chronic diseases.
How do you get this message out to members of the community before they become patients?
We are very committed to keeping them from becoming patients—this is a hospital designed to keep you well. We have a full-service wellness and integrative medicine center; Henry’s, a destination healthy café; and a 90-seat auditorium where we hold cooking classes for patients and community members. We’re also building a state-of-the-art greenhouse that will give us another opportunity to educate our community. We want community members to come to us when they are healthy to learn about and participate in activities that will help them live a healthy, optimal life.
Patient satisfaction scores for the hospital are ranked in the 99th percentile, an outstanding achievement for a hospital that has been operational for less than a year. To what do you attribute this?
We bring more than just clinical excellence to the table, as it were. We are creating a community center for well-being, not just a hospital. The people who walk through our doors, whether they are sick or well, are given an opportunity to start to think differently about their lives and how they can change them for the better.
Can this ambitious goal be achieved at the same time as costs are contained?
Absolutely. Our innovations are intended to improve outcomes and lower costs. For example, all the rooms are private. This decreases the chances of infection, meaning that fewer patients get sick when they are in the hospital, so there is a corresponding reduction in length of stay and readmission rates. We want to catalyze the development of a new model for delivering health care that lowers costs through maintaining wellness and preventing illness. If we combine the very best clinical programs with exceptional service to patients and maintain a focus on wellness, we can challenge the entire health care industry and set a new standard of care for this country.