In October, after the unfortunate passing of the facility manager, Grace Health System in Lubbock, Texas found themselves in critical need of facility support. With just weeks away from the planned move-in date for the new surgical hospital, Grace and Covenant Heath System leadership in Texas reached out to RESO, asking for assistance. Throughout the past year, Kerri Bartel-Christensen has been acting as a liaison between RESO and Texas facilities leadership, which expedited getting more actively involved.
The new Grace Surgical Hospital is an elective hospital with 10 operating rooms, 32 inpatient beds, and 16-day surgery beds. The facility is a three-story, 107,000 square foot structure serving as the center point of this new state of the art 87-acre healthcare community.
Eric Rodgers, senior manager facility services with Providence Healthcare Stevens County has experience with unexpected and tragic loss within his own team. He could empathize with the team’s pain and could help the team navigate through these difficult times. When asked if he could transition to Lubbock to support the team, Eric did not hesitate. “It was an easy decision for me,” relates Eric. In addition to Eric agreeing to transition into this interim role, other RESO team members made themselves available for support.
With the opening date scheduled for December 3, Eric had to move quickly. Upon arriving in Texas on October 30, his first order of business was to assess the project, the team, and identify gaps and mitigation plans. After touring the facility and meeting the general contractor and facility team, several key issues were identified. The contractor was helpful in providing the documents needed to assess the status of the project and determine what gaps existed before opening. “That made for some light reading over the first weekend!” joked Eric.
The first gap identified was the equipment training for the engineering team. The training was planned for the previous facility manager with the intention of training the team at a later date. The current situation required a change in plans, with Eric quickly rallying to get the team the training needed, while the vendors were still on- site.
Additionally, there was the need to review policies, procedures, and plans to ensure alignment with the new facility. In partnership with RESO, and our facility management vendor, CBRE, assets were uploaded into the Grace work order system and preventive maintenance programs were established for the new facility. Eric was able to tap into the Accreditation team to establish a list of recommended changes for the architects to update in order for the Life Safety drawings to be in compliance with Joint Commission.
As scheduled, all department with the exception of the emergency department moved across town to the new facility. On December 5, the former facility, Grace Medical Center, closed its emergency room and the emergency room at Grace Surgical Hospital went live, officially marking the transition to the new facility. In midst of all of these changes, Grace also migrated from Meditech to Epic.
Throughout the following weekend, the team engaged in training to include life safety code applied to the new site and the impact on workflows. These “what would you do” scenarios created a more robust real-life training for team.
On December 7, at 8:05 a.m. Central Time, the first surgical case was successfully completed in the new hospital.
In addition to managing the remaining punch list items, Eric is currently working with leadership to draft a job description for the Facility Services Manager role, then will work with Talent Acquisition to begin the recruitment process.
