Key Project Stats
The Challenge
Community Medical Centers of Stockton, California, has four major hospital/ambulatory centers in the San Joaquin Valley. They serve over 100,000 patients across three counties, making them one of the area’s largest safety-net providers, delivering vital care regardless of the patient’s ability to pay.
Patient Care Boards (PCB) first partnered with Community Medical Centers (CMC) at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. They required a custom communication board for their Med-Surg units; 1,100 boards in all, across their facilities. They were unsure about exact content or size preferences and had the additional pressure to spend allocated funds by year’s end.
The Solution
The PCB team addressed the design issues first. CMC was particularly interested in seeing examples where hospitals had created one consistent board with the same information for the entire facility. PCB had several examples of this application and shared several Med-Surg custom communication board designs from their design library for consideration.
The CMC team used a design as a template to provide a rough draft with their requested fields. The first draft was three feet square. A quote for this and several custom sizes were presented to the CMC stakeholders to give them an idea of economies of scale. This was particularly helpful, as raw material widths and lengths determine the best yields.
From there, the CMC team matched the various board sizes to actual available wall space in each of their targeted facilities. They discovered they needed not one but four different size types. The challenge became to work with the chosen insert design and modify it for three distinctly different dimensions – a task easier said than done.
The PCB team drew up several options, each of which had to maintain the same vertical format and the same information.
With the correct sizes determined, PCB cut frames and glazing materials according to size. These were then packed in Gaylord shipping boxes onto skids and directly shipped to the four CMC locations. Boxes and packing lists were marked with quantities and sizes, as some locations had the added challenge of multiple board sizes.
For installing the frames, the PCB team was in direct contact with the hospitals’ Facilities teams to provide clear and exact instructions. In this way, the CMC locations could get a head start on frame installation while the printed inserts were in production. Installations of this nature can take time when rooms must be unoccupied to complete the installations.
In the meantime, the custom communication board insert designs were finalized, and printed prototypes were sent to CMC for final approval.
Managing the logistics and delivery helped keep the project on track, but as expressed by CMC, the project’s success was staying the course over multiple iterations.
Thank you, Jeff! Wow, what a process. Thanks for your patience. — Raquel Haro, PI Specialist, MAOB – Community Medical Centers
Challenging custom communication board design issues and logistics made for an outstanding project for PCB. The client couldn’t have been more engaged and helpful,” said Jeff Ureles, COO at PCB. “But the best part of the work we do is how reasonable and responsible our clients are. Across the board, whether working with NCOs or Marketing, Purchasing or Patient Experience VIPs, all our clients are a pleasure. CMC was no exception.”
No sooner had the Med-Surg boards been installed when a new request from CMC for Labor and Delivery boards arrived in the PCB mailbox.
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