Irwin Army Community Hospital Receives a 2009 Excalibur Award

By Alison Kohler
MEDDAC Public Affairs

February 3, 2010 - A military treatment facility in central Kansas received a top U.S. Army Surgeon General’s award Jan. 28 at the Military Health System conference in National Harbor, Md.Irwin Army Community Hospital, located at Fort Riley, Kan., was selected as the recipient of the Surgeon General’s Excalibur award active component military treatment facility category for its success in improving its physical evaluation board process and decreasing the rate of returned board packets.

“The impact of this process improvement plan to soldiers and family members is they get better service,” said Mark Rivera, supervisory physical evaluation board liaison officer.

The results of the process improvement took IACH from being one of the worst MTFs in the Army for return rates to being one of the best in the Army.

“As well as this award, IACH has a successful [medical evaluation board] program. We’re in the top five for processing medical boards the last six months of fiscal year 2009,” Rivera said.

This is the first time IACH submitted a performance improvement initiative for consideration by the Office of the Surgeon General, according to Deanna Wolnik, chief of quality management in the clinical operations division.

“It is a very good feeling to have our staff's efforts recognized – especially at this level,” Wolnik said.

The process improvement began when IACH’s return rate, meaning cases submitted were rejected because of incorrect or missing data, was as high as 39 percent.

“You don’t know how frustrating it is when, back in the day, our return rate was 20 percent, 39 percent, that meant that 39 percent of the boards we sent forward had to be repeated in many cases,” Rivera said.

One of the greatest improvements to the process was improving communication, Rivera said.

“When we got a return, it wasn’t communicated to anybody so the next month we’d get a return for the same exact reason. Part of our process improvement plan was to hold after action reviews when we received a return, so we could make sure everyone was informed why it was returned and we had a plan on how to avoid repeated returns for the very same reason,” Rivera said.

Another improvement was to do a quality check, submit the case to another PEBLO for review, have the supervisor briefly review it and then send it forward, Rivera said.

“With these processes put in place, the first year we were able to reduce our returns to 5.34 percent and then the following year our return rate was actually the best in the Army,” Rivera said.

IACH consistently has maintained a return rate below the OTSG and Medical Command standard of 10 percent for the past four years.

“MEDCOM in their April 2009 (organizational inspection program) when they came down, they identified our process improvement plan as a best practice, and they also requested electronic copies of it so they could share it with other MTFs that process medical boards,” Rivera said.

“The winning of this award is prestigious and sets our hospital up as a benchmark for other facilities to emulate,” Wolnik said.

The team that worked on the process improvement was comprised of PEBLOs, MEB physicians, psychiatrists, physical therapists, patient administration division representatives, and the deputy commander for clinical services.

“They’re proud of being in the top five. They’re proud of the Excalibur award, and it’s a very good team,” Rivera said.