Culture of Excellence
A Culture of Excellence Background
In 2007, leaders of DeWitt Health Care Network – the predecessor to Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, now Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center – recognized that despite having been named the top medical facility in the Army Medical Department by every metric, they had not achieved the changes in culture needed to continue to move the organization forward. In particular, a cultural change was still needed to prepare the organization for the transition to the new, state-of-the-art facility we’re in today, while integrating with staff from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Naval Medical Center Bethesda and Malcolm Grow Air Force Medical Center to become a joint-service Department of Defense community hospital.
Benchmarking successful culture models from organizations like Disney and the Baptist Health Care System, Dewitt leaders developed the Culture of Excellence, which represents how the organization transformed during its transition, and how our organization today strives to excel in service to our beneficiaries.
The Four Pillars
The Culture of Excellence consists of four pillars: employee loyalty, customer loyalty, culture and standards and communication. Peer-led staff teams, assigned to review and address the organization’s needs for culture change, integrated these pillars into the hospital’s strategic focus.
Three Major Goals
In addition to the Culture of Excellence pillars, the strategic focus also encompasses three major goals: people and the development of One Team, patients and processes embracing the philosophy of patient- and family-centered care, and our physical plant using the principles of evidence-based design. These goals serve as the backbone of our Balanced Scorecard – the tool we use to monitor and manage the progress of our cultural change.
Employee Loyalty
Employee loyalty focuses on staff appreciation and recognition as well as professional development. A.T. Augusta Military Medical Center wants to be the health care employer of choice in the National Capital Area.
Patient and Family Centered Care
The philosophy of Patient and Family Centered Care has become the standard for our process improvement initiatives. Supported by our Patient Advisory Council, a host of projects are underway and others completed using Lean Six Sigma and Value-Stream Mapping.
Evidence-Based Design
Evidence-based design is a relatively new science of improving patient outcomes through facility design. Research shows abundant natural light, views of nature and decreased ambient noise can have positive effects on patient recovery and outcomes. Therefore, architects designed the new hospital to take advantage of these principles.
It is our vision to be a premier healthcare organization in the Defense Department, leading transformation in health care, training and research. We believe in the coming decades, military and civilian health care will embrace these principles in American health care. We see the same principles as imperatives while serving as the Department of Defense’s flagship community hospital, and now medical center.