Hospital Acquisition and What We Learned

Abstract

Background: In the fall of 2023, UC San Diego Health acquired Alvarado Hospital from Prime Health, a community hospital in the San Diego area. This acquisition proved to be beneficial, but it also brought along its own set of challenges. A team of 3 clinical educators and 2 clinical specialists supported 2 hospitals, and the addition of another hospital posed several challenges. These challenges included training staff, interdisciplinary collaboration, protocol introduction, technology integration, and staff support. For most of the transition, there was no dedicated clinical educator or supervisor on site. The education team was required to split their time rotating between the 3 sites, which was quite challenging. To assess the impact of the limited resources on this transition, a staff survey was conducted, which focused on this period.

Methods: We surveyed the staff to gauge their impression of how the hospital transition was managed. The survey was completed by 16 employees who transitioned from Prime Health to UC San Diego Health. During this transition period, one employee retired.

Results: The survey results were overwhelmingly positive, reflecting the management’s transition handling. 73% of the staff expressed extreme satisfaction with the transition, while 13% were somewhat satisfied and only 7% were dissatisfied. 80% strongly agreed that the transition was well-managed, while 7% somewhat agreed and 13% strongly disagreed. Furthermore, 87% strongly agreed that they had support from the new department leadership, while only 13% strongly disagreed.

Conclusions: The transition was not without its challenges. Despite the limited dedicated resources, the transitioning manager decided to retire, leaving a leadership void. The pulmonary director had to step into the day-to-day role while overseeing the pulmonary department at the two other sites. However, most staff expressed satisfaction with the transition, a testament to their adaptability. For future investigation, we could examine the impact of the acquisition on the other 2 sites and survey whether they felt their resources were being taken away.