Chief Financial Officer Larry Fitzgerald directs a visitor from Tennessee in the Medical Center lobby.

December 1, 2004 -- Patients admitted to U.Va. Medical Center appreciate comfort while they enter and stay in a medical environment. With that in mind, administrators and managers at U.Va. Medical Center have taken on a new role: welcoming guests and patients at the door.

Begun as a program with senior executives last summer, this welcoming program has expanded so that Medical Center managers also take turns at the main doors of the Health System, greeting patients, families and visitors when they arrive. These welcomers add more than an extra greeting. They are also available for answering questions, helping people find their way, solving problems, and even escorting people.

“It is important that Medical Center leadership have an understanding of the issues and challenges our patients and their families face,” says R. Edward Howell, vice president and chief executive officer of the Medical Center, who notes that the chiefs all take turns at welcoming. “This increased understanding will help us in the assignment of Medical Center resources as well as helping to make the hospital feel a little more welcoming and comfortable.”

Margaret Van Bree, MHA, DrPH, chief operations officer, says that the program has the benefit of giving administrators and managers a close look at the Health System through patients’ eyes. “We’re able to learn firsthand how we can better serve our patients, with such topics as way finding, the ease of checking in, the connections between settings – for example, the ease of finding the pharmacy after leaving clinics. We have even made some changes based on observations that the chiefs have made during their welcoming activities.”

“Our transportation and greeter staff already do a fine job of helping people who arrive at our front door,” Howell says. “We are simply increasing Medical Center leadership interactions with patients, families and visitors when they come to the Medical Center.”