St John’s Hospital is learning from excellence
Emer Martin, CEO discusses the leadership model of St John’s Hospital and efforts to adopt and learn a different approach to quality improvement which will enhance patient experience and deliver better clinical outcomes.
St John’s Hospital, a registered charity, was founded in 1780 by Lady Hartstonge and other benefactors as a Fever and Lock Hospital. It was built on the site of an old barracks, part of the historical Walls of Limerick, and opened as the Fever Hospital of Saint John in 1781. It treated epidemics during the Great Famine (1845-1849) such as cholera and typhoid. Little did we think that we would have occasion to return to our originally founded purpose since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 1888, the then Bishop of Limerick, Edward Thomas O’Dwyer invited the Nursing Sisters of the Little Company of Mary to the hospital. St John’s was the first site in Ireland where the Little Company of Mary Nursing Sisters came to work. Today, the legacy of the Little Company lives on even though the Sisters are now long retired. Compassionate, patient centred care underpins all we do.
Since 2013, St John’s Hospital is one of six hospitals in the University of Limerick Hospital Group. Its relationship with the Health Service Executive (HSE) is as a service provider, as provided for in Section 38 of the Health Act 2004. Under the Smaller Hospitals Framework, St John’s has been designated a Model 2S hospital, a hospital that can carry out intermediate surgery which cannot be carried out on a day-case basis and which requires in-patient overnight stay.
The hospital also admits scheduled medical patients through the medical assessment unit and accepts transfers from University Hospital Limerick. Today, the hospital has 89 in-patient beds, 10 day-care beds and an urgent care centre incorporating the medical assessment unit and a local injuries unit, co-led by advanced nurse practitioners and medical staff.
Leadership is a core element to the success of our organisation throughout its years. On 23 February 2004, St John’s made history as the first public hospital to be awarded an accreditation award by the Irish Health Services Accreditation Board in recognition of the hospital’s high standards of patient care and its commitment to quality improvement.
Today, from the board, through the chief executive and to frontline staff, the input of every staff member is encouraged and valued in the setting of goals and standards to achieve the best outcomes for our patients. Our leadership model is one of encouragement, support and empowerment as we believe these principles will motivate, guide and inspire staff to develop as individuals and provide high quality care to patients.
An example of this leadership model is found in our multidisciplinary Learning from Excellence (LfE) team who are leading out on promoting early mobility for patients to bring about improved recovery and discharge times. The project is named ‘Get up, get dressed, get moving’ and is delivered under the LfE philosophy (see learningfromexcellence.com for more information).
The project is sponsored by myself as CEO and led by physiotherapy manager Martina Ryan. Last June 2019, the hospital submitted a bid to the LfE team based in Birmingham to obtain quality improvement (QI) support from LFEQI, an established Learning from Excellence Quality Improvement team in the NHS whose methodology is based on promoting what is known to work well through an ‘appreciative enquiry’ approach.
St John’s was delighted to be selected for training, having bid against other UK organisations for this support. It affords us the opportunity to learn a different approach to QI, our aim being to improve patient experience and achieve better clinical outcomes. Furthermore, this opportunity enables us to learn on an international level in a novel learning environment. Skills and knowledge acquired through this initiative can be applied to other QI projects and any other aspect of care delivery, while opening doors to collaborative working, international networking and shared learning experiences.
LfE philosophy believes that studying excellence in healthcare can create new opportunities for learning and improve resilience and staff morale. This is evident in the many examples of compassionate care delivered by our staff during their recent experiences of caring for patients with coronavirus. St John’s is proud of its history and tradition since its foundation of providing kind and compassionate care to the people of Limerick and its environs. We remain faithful to the mission of our founders and we are committed to their pursuit of providing excellent care.
For more information contact
Emer Martin, CEO
E: emer.martin@stjohnshospital.ie
