Patient Handbook

Silver Cross Hospital

About Silver Cross Hospital

When Silver Cross first opened its doors on Thanksgiving Day 1895, the dream of the Will County Union of King's Daughters and Sons became a reality. The Christian charitable group spent five years planning and raising funds to make their dreams come true. The 33-bed not-for profit two-story hospital was named after the King's Daughters and Sons emblem, the Maltese Cross.

Since then, Silver Cross has evolved into a world-class health care network serving Joliet and the southwest suburbs through a team of 400 physicians, 1,800 employees and 500 volunteers. In addition to the hospital, which is licensed for 304 beds, Silver Cross has developed an extensive ambulatory network throughout its region that includes nine satellite facilities with over 90 physicians and an array of outpatient services such as X-ray, MRI, mammography, therapy, dialysis and occupational health care. Silver Cross has also developed partnerships with specialists from Children's Memorial in Chicago for 24-hour neonatal and pediatric care; and Heartland Cardiovascular Institute, the area's largest cardiology medical practice.

In recent years, Silver Cross has been recognized for exceptional customer service by Press, Ganey, a national health care patient satisfaction research company, and ranked as number one in the Chicago area in the premiere issue of Chicago Consumer's Checkbook for customer service quality. Over the last three years, Silver Cross has also been named as one of America's Most Customer Friendly Hospitals by the American Alliance of Healthcare Partners.

In addition, the hospital has been featured nationally for its clinical quality and patient safety. Silver Cross is the only community hospital in the southwest suburbs named as a 100 Top Hospital® by Solucient, the leading source for healthcare intelligence, for two consecutive years. The award recognizes only 100 of over 5,000 hospitals throughout the United States that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, operational efficiency, financial stability and growth. In 2004, Solucient also recognized Silver Cross as a Performance Improvement Leader hospital for developing consistent and effective organization-wide performance improvement across critical measures at a faster rate than other U.S. hospitals between 1997-2001.

Silver Cross is also dedicated to keeping up with the growing demands of the community by investing heavily in facilities, technology and staff. The past year, we invested $25 million to expand the emergency department to 30,000 sq. ft with 26 private treatment rooms, 6 dedicated observation beds and more diagnostic and reception facilities. Silver Cross has also added a high-tech, hotel-like 35-bed unit for surgical patients on the hospital's sixth floor.

Mission

As a not-for-profit organization, we are dedicated to meeting the healthcare needs of all people we serve. We promise to care for patients with competence and compassion, by providing quality services with a personal touch.

Vision

The "Silver Cross Experience" will make us the health care provider of choice in our region.

Core Values

We, as members of the Silver Cross Hospital team, are dedicated to meeting the needs of the people we serve by living our Core Values of

• Service—serving beyond expectation
• Integrity—consistently exhibiting appropriate behavior
• Leadership—taking initiative
• Virtue—treating others as you would have them treat you
• Excellence—providing quality that exceeds standards
• Responsibility—we are accountable for our actions

Six Behaviors

1. Always introduce yourself
2. Wear your name badge appropriately
3. Always give explanations of processes
4. Escort patients and visitors
5. Keep the environment clean
6. Always greet patients, visitors and colleagues

The Way You Should Be Treated™

The Way You Should Be Treated. What does it mean to you? It might mean being regarded with respect and compassion. Or with high-quality care and attention.

But here, at Silver Cross, we recognize each of our patients as individuals with their own sets of wants and concerns. And we have made it our goal to address them all. It is what we call the Silver Cross Experience. This is our promise to you that extends not only to the outstanding quality of our personal service, but also to the commitment to the very best clinical quality, and our attention to patient safety. Even to how we respond to the expanding needs of our growing community. Through our dedication to these details, we have been honored as one of the Top 100 Hospitals in the nation for two consecutive years, setting the standard for care in Joliet and the southwest suburbs.

Clinical Quality

At Silver Cross, we continually test ourselves and raise the bar for quality. By doing so, we have received the Gold Seal of Approval from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. This independent organization sets the standards by which all health care quality is measured in America and around the world. They test the safety and quality of care provided to the public, and by doing so, improve it.

At Silver Cross, we strive to exceed their standards by devoting time and resources to keep elevating our quality.

One way that we are doing this is by investing in advanced technology that allows us to perform brain surgery without the scalpel and one-minute breast biopsies. Our doctors and nurses also have immediate access to your medical records using portable digital assistants, or PDAs, as well as digital copies of your X-rays, ultrasound, MRI and other test results anytime, anywhere. We have sped up the diagnosis process so that you don't have to wait as long to get your results.

Silver Cross is also the first hospital in the area to use the most advanced CAT scan technology available to diagnose patients with chest pain and life-threatening illnesses including cardiovascular disease and stroke.

And, the care given to our patients with heart disease and pneumonia far exceed the national standard for care according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Silver Cross also has an excellent track record of favorable outcomes in bariatric weight loss surgery, which has led the hospital to be named by the American Society of Bariatric Surgery as one of only six Centers of Excellence in Illinois. The hospital performed the first traditional, laparoscopic and Lap-Band procedures in the southwest suburbs helping hundreds of morbidly obese patients live longer and healthier lives.

Patient Safety

No matter what the reason for your visit with us, patient safety is always at the top of our minds and at the heart of every action we take. We are constantly putting ourselves in your shoes and emerging with solutions to help you feel completely comfortable and assured.

We even develop programs and plans for improvement before regulations require them such as our Time-Out Process that occurs before every major procedure. Our team stops and takes the time to verify that they are performing the correct procedure on the correct patient and the correct site of the body before performing any surgery.

We also use bar-code scanning technology to confirm a patient's identity and prescription information before giving any medications at the bedside. This greatly reduces the possibility of medication errors while increasing accuracy and efficiency.

To minimize the chance of a patient falling, we've designed remote-controlled lighting on our new sixth floor patient care unit. Plus, all our beds now come equipped with a special alarm system, alerting the nurse when a patient leaves his bed when he shouldn't be.

Personal Service

Like safety, personal service is a constant at Silver Cross woven into everything we do and every action we take. Our goal is not only to make our patients well, but to make them feel safe, welcomed and cared for-no matter how brief or long your stay with us.

From the moment you pull into our parking lot, to the time you leave our doors, we've thought of special touches to help you and your family feel comfortable and at home. Complimentary valet parking and shuttle bus service are available at the Smith Pavilion entrance.

And our service ambassadors are ready and willing to assist with whatever you may need at both the Smith and Francis Pavilion entrances.

We understand that coming to a hospital can be quite stressful, especially in emergency situations, so we deal with your paperwork and medical history only after you have seen a doctor. In fact, most of our patients see an emergency physician or nurse practitioner within 30 minutes of their arrival. We've also expanded our emergency department to accommodate 50,000 patients a year—quickly and efficiently.

We listened to your feedback provided on our patient satisfaction surveys and have made significant improvements. For example, in our new 35-bed unit on the sixth floor, surgical patients can control just about everything from their bed including the temperature, lighting and flat screen TV system. Loved ones are also welcome to spend the night on a comfortable fold-out sofa sleeper right in the room.

We also offer free wireless internet access throughout the hospital. And family and friends are encouraged to send a greeting through our website at www.silvercross.org. These e-cards are hand delivered to our patients within 24 hours.

It is the culmination of these special touches that has led Silver Cross to be named a Hospital of Choice by the American Alliance of Healthcare Providers for several years recognizing us as one of America's friendliest hospitals.

Community Support

As a not-for-profit healthcare provider, we have a dedication to caring and serving that extends far beyond our walls. Each year, Silver Cross provides millions of dollars in charity care and other community benefit including annual donations to the Will County Health Department and Will-Grundy Free Medical Clinic. Silver Cross also serves as the resource hospital training all the paramedics in Will and Grundy counties.

We recognize that you have a choice when seeking out a hospital or healthcare provider. And it's our responsibility to making sure that all are residents have access to premiere services while recognizing each patient's individual needs. At Silver Cross, it's not unusual. It's simply the way you should be treated.