The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was named one of the “150 Best Places to Work in Health Care” last month by Becker’s Hospital Review. This was the first year DHMC made the list since it was first published in 2011, DHMC chief human resource officer John Malanowski said.
The review assessesvarious health care providers based on their quality of service, both in respect to patient care and employee wellness. This is the second year that the list expanded into other health care specific programs, such as health care consulting firms, rather than just providers.
Health care providers considered for the list include medical groups, ambulatory surgery centers, home health providers, hospitals and health systems, according to their website.
Molly Gamble, the editor-in-chief of Becker’s Hospital Review, said that the list represents a group of exceptional health care providers but does not rank these providers specifically. The list was crafted partially on self-nomination, and the self-reported application assessed the overall culture of the health care provider, the comprehensiveness of the provider’s benefits packages, the quality of their employee training and the diversity of their employees.
“Companies have to return a pretty robust nomination form to us,” Gamble said.
Gamble also said that much of the decision-making is performed by a committee of health care executives, who are able to give their opinions on the applications. Gamble said that the editorial team is also allowed to add hospitals to the list based on perceived excellence.
Heather Punke, a writer and editor at Becker’s Hospital Review, said that DHMC fell under the category of hospitals that submitted their own nomination, and added that DHMC stood out due to several of its special programs, particularly for the benefit of its employees.
“They offered some interesting programs for their employees like one-on-one counseling,” Punke said. “They have a unique wellness program and some tuition assistance.”
Gamble said that employee wellness can be indicative of the quality of a hospital as a whole.
“If hospitals place more and more emphasis on keeping people well and out of the hospital — well, that’s kind of one of the big goals of health care reforms,” Gamble said. “If hospitals aren’t doing that with their own employees, it’s one of those things — ‘If you aren’t walking the walk, can you talk the talk?’”
Gamble said that from its application and then further review of the institution, DHMC is doing a great job with connecting the importance of employee satisfaction to the overall quality of the institution.
Both Gamble and Punke agreed that DHMC provides unique programs relating to employee stress management, wellness and fitness. Gamble said that these unique programs were important in assessing hospitals like DHMC against other hospitals, many of which do not have such programs.
Malanowski attributes both the hospital’s culture and national reputation as reasons why the institution made the list.
“It’s our culture — we are totally committed to our patients and have a culture of caring,” he said. “That’s a huge part of our satisfaction scores.”
Malanowski added that the institution has generally received exceptionally high employee satisfaction scores, especially in recent years.
According to the DHMC website, the institution periodically reviews and modifies its benefit plans based on legal changes, competing providers and financial adjustments.
Malanowski felt that the application that DHMC submittedwas very comprehensive, saying that the application amounted to almost 20 pages and covered multiple areas.
DHMC includes not only the main hospital in Lebanon, but also several clinics and outposts across New Hampshire and Vermont, including clinics in Concord, Manchester and Keene, New Hampshire.
Parker Richards contributed reporting.
