The Georgia Scroll
October 1998

Member Spotlight
Alan McCumber & Kelly Vining
South Fulton Medical Center

By: Karen Mowrey, Chamberlin Edmonds and Associates

What would you do if faced with these challenges?

• Reduce cost – without compromising patient care or employee morale.

• Establish and implement new (improved) financial, registration, and admissions processes – in preparation for multiple computer system conversions (with deadlines fast approaching).
• Produce reports that accurately measure the effectiveness of Managed Care Contracts.
• Improve customer service –to patients, guests, and hospital employees.
• Empower long-term employees to take responsibility for their jobs and take action to improve services to fellow employees, patients and guests.

Alan McCumber, the Director of General Financial Services and Kelly Vining, the Director of Patient Financial Services at South Fulton Medical Center are, in fact, facing and overcoming this list of challenges. They have accomplished a great deal in a relatively short period of time. They agreed to share the approaches they’ve taken, and their recent successes, with the readers of the Scroll.

Alan McCumber began his tenure at the hospital in December of 1997 as consultant; in April of 1998 he was asked to "come on board" as the Director of General Financial Services. As Alan says, "they asked me to stay….and I enjoy challenges". Prior to accepting the position of Director of PFS, Kelly was a Senior Accountant in the Accounting Department. Working together, they have witnessed the following changes:

• Increased involvement and empowerment of business office staff resulting in taking responsibility for designing and implementing new, improved business processes. "They’ve gone" Kelly said, "from not offering opinions or asking questions to not hesitating to tell us what they think…they’re doing Power Point presentations (to us)."

• Increased morale among all of the financial services personnel – they value their role and are proud of the job they perform. This change in attitude is reflected in improved customer service – to patients, guests, and other departments.

• Open communications between the Finance Department and other hospital departments, clinical and non-clinical. The "we-they" attitude that had existed for some time has been significantly diminished.

• Target dates for system conversions are being met. New business processes are being implemented and conversions are occurring on time.

• Finance’s ability to provide accurate, valid and timely data is improving with each system conversion – a major goal is closer to being achieved.

How have Kelly and Alan achieved these successes? In their words, one step at a time. First and foremost Alan explained, they were clear on their goals and priorities. And they established open honest communication between one another. Alan explained, "we don’t always agree.. but we listen to each other and we come up with a solution that will work for both of us. Our only agenda is solving the problem… we know our collective success depends on each of us being successful".

"Managing by example" is important to their success as well, Alan said "I’m a firm believer in not asking my employees to do something that I’m not willing to do." An example: Kelly is assisting his staff with process improvement in the emergency room – by scheduling himself to work the second shift so he can see, first hand, how the process works.

Kelly’s first step as Director of Patient Financial Services was to build trust within the department; how? "Open communication and honesty…I don’t beat around the bush about anything...I let them (employees) know what I know." Kelly met with the business office staff and asked them to list "problems". He listened and he wrote down the issues they identified.

Alan, as Director over all the Financial Departments, identified his main objective and took action. As he said, "One of my main objectives was to rebuild the confidence of the Finance Department …that can only be done by delivering the customer service we need to deliver, regardless of who our customers are."

Alan communicated this expectation clearly – to everyone – and to emphasize its importance, he told his employees that everyone would be expected to attend a customer service seminar, and/or an educational seminar every six months. "This lets the employees know they’re valued – that we care – and it results in enhanced self esteem and the final result is better customer service."

How did they elicit involvement and participation? Slowly – it took time to establish trust; that was accomplished through honest communication and managing by example. Giving employees very clear expectations about their job and their role was also key. These changes were not easy for all of the employees. "There was resistance to change," Alan said. "Sometimes people are willing to change, sometimes they aren’t …and you have to balance sympathy with the needs of the institution."

With employees who were willing and even eager to change "on board," Kelly and Alan presented the idea of "conversion teams." Essentially, for each system conversion, a team of employees is responsible for developing new processes and improved procedures – to ensure the new computer system can be used to its full capacity. Employees are given ownership of the process and the outcome – and they are eager to participate.

Alan added, "we are not critical when they make mistakes". The goal is to create and implement more efficient processes – within and between departments; it is not about "win lose" or who is right or wrong. Kelly summed up the success of this approach, the employees, he said, "are eager to offer their opinions and ideas…they’re doing the work – all we do is give them the tools".

The secret to their success? Patience, perseverance, and honesty. Underlying their desire to achieve their goals is a willingness to be more than managers, they are leaders – empowering employees to strengthen their organization.

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Last modified: June 22, 2001