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Showing posts from June, 2017

Independence Day 2017

MHRI celebrates the freedom and independence of all Americans. As we celebrate our nation's freedom, we honor the courageous men and women dedicated to preserving it. I hope you all have a great holiday weekend and enjoy the time with your family and friends.




Presenting MHRI's Diabetes Research

Guest Blogger:
Joan Bardsely MBA, RN CDE FAADE
Assistant Vice President, Special Projects

MHRI was well represented at the 2017 American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions recently held in San Diego!

Carine Nassar, RD, CDE, did a fabulous job as part of a panel to discuss the challenges of inpatient management of diabetes. She featured the Diabetes Pathway and provided practical guidance on what worked and what didn’t in a real world setting. Michelle Magee, MD, Director of the MedStar Diabetes Institute, presented to an enthusiastic reception the results of a collaborative PCORI grant on the role of the community health worker in the management and education of the community living with diabetes.

In addition to these presentations, there were multiple poster presentations from MHRI, including by Vanita Aroda, MD, Director of the MCCRC, on study performed at MHRI regarding various insulin preparation and usage to optimize control of diabetes. I was honored to present a poster on using implementation strategies to advance the joint position statement on the four critical times to refer for diabetes education.

All in all, MHRI continues to showcase to the international community the important work we do to advance health!



Research as an Emissary

If a picture paints a thousand words, what does a video give us? 

I was ecstatic to see the highlights video from the 2017 MedStar Health Research Symposium and share it with MHRI associates at our spring town halls.

For those who could not attend the Symposium, this video really gives you a feel for the symposium events and the commitment that MedStar Health make to advancing health. I hope you enjoy and share this video with your colleagues.



I couldn't say it better than this.


If you'd like to share the video, it can also be found on the MedStar Health YouTube channel at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPsLGF6FpU4&t=1s


Sharing Our Knowledge

Guest Blogger: Eva Hochberger
Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Office of Research Development, Planning & Communications


In my role at MHRI, I do many things. A recent, new experience for me was attending an event in the community with associates from the MedStar Community Clinical Research Center.

The team was invited to present at a local church on diabetes and let attendees know about diabetes clinical research at MedStar. The group was engaged and wanted to know more about how to care for themselves and their families. The questions they asked really highlighted all the information out there and that our clinicians and associates want to share their knowledge!

The discussion was a reminder that because we work within healthcare and research fields, we interact daily with information regarding health that some people are unaware of. It’s important to share the knowledge, through community events and industry presentations, to support the health of the global community.



Quarterly Manager's Meeting: Engaging Everyone

At the beginning of the month, MHRI manager's came together for the quarterly manager's meeting. Each meeting has a different focus, and this sesssion was focused on the results of the 2017 Engagement Survey.


Stephen R.T. Evans, MD, executive vice president for Medical Affairs and chief medical officer for MedStar Health started the day out, setting the stage for the importance of the associate survey. After that, Jill Perkins, PhD, from Willis Towers Watson, the company that created, managed and analyzed the associate survey shared the results.



As we reviewed the results, managers chimed in with their thoughts and feedback. The conversation was engaging and allowed us to recongize the strengths and opportunities for MHRI and MedStar Health.


We took the time to award three groups for the highest associate engagement and greatest increase and then Dr. Evan's presented MHRI with an award for our overall results.




There was a lot of conversation regarding the results and what we can do to continue making MHRI a great place to work. The next step is for managers to get their results and share it with each department. I look forward to seeing action plans go into place!


Here are some pictures from the meeting:



 
   

MedStar #Patient2Consumer

Are you ready to do your part in helping MedStar stay on the cutting edge of innovation that advances health and wellness?

I know many researchers and investigators at MHRI are also innovators! Here is your chance to connect with others who have the same goal as you: to advance the health and wellness of our community.
MedStar Health is collaborating with global startup incubator and seed fund 1776 to host a startup competition called the MedStar #Patient2Consumer Challenge.

The effort is intended to activate the startup community throughout the country (not just in Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York!) to identify those innovative startups that have the potential to catalyze the transformation of any strategic aspect of MedStar’s health system in order to benefit our patients through more convenient, consumer-friendly care.

You can read the challenge annoucement or learn more on the challenge site. The deadline to submit your idea through the application portal is Sunday, June 11, 2017 (by 11:59 p.m. ET).

Partnering with the most promising emerging leaders enables us to further understand the innovation landscape and find—and realize—the next big thing.

The MedStar #Patient2Consumer Challenge is intended to focus and drive these outcomes. Thank you for helping connect us—whether that’s with a late-stage startup looking to take its work to the next level, or an earlier stage effort in need of further validation and/or domain expertise. (And if you are already working with a startup, recommend that they apply today!)

Building a Legacy

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
 
What is going to be your legacy?

Wow! That is a big, audacious question! It is also exactly what we were asked at the end of the MedStar Leader of the Future.

The MedStar Leader of the Future is a multi-part training course for all managers across MedStar Health. I just completed Day 4, which is dedicated to “Nurturing Talent”, a dynamic session in which we discussed everything from effective communication to mentorship. As participants shared their “legacy”, it was not surprising how it often connects to empowering associates. One of my favorites was “to build a world class organization, one associate at a time.”

So how can we accomplish our “legacy”? Well, to start, the scientist in me wants to first “collect data” – and that is exactly what the associate survey is all about! Thanks to all of you, we now have survey results from well over 85% of associates. This week, we will start digging into the results (and written comments) with the MHRI managers, and then we will present the survey results to everyone in Town Halls, running June 9th to 21st.

One area of opportunity that you helped us identify on the prior survey was professional development, a clear route to enhancing associate empowerment. I have no doubt that this is an area we will continue to focus on going forward. Peter Senge, an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said it best: “A learning organization is one in which people at all levels, individually and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about.”

This quote resonates with me on several levels. First, the importance that each person is an individual and that individual growth collectively results in organizational growth. Second, the organization must continually grow and become a "learning organization” because the world is constantly changing; there is no field where this is more evident than in research and healthcare. Lastly, we all want to do meaningful work that we truly care about and what can be more meaningful than advancing the health of those around us!

That leads me back to our professional home at MedStar. What makes MedStar what it is? What will it take for MedStar to recognize its full potential in the future? The answer becomes clear as I write this monthly message – It is each one of us, together. Together, we will continue building a learning environment that advances health.

Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours.” - Les Brown

Thank you.

Neil



Read Focus at MedStarResearch.org/FOCUS.