Bronson Methodist Hospital

Founded in 1900, today Bronson Methodist Hospital

(BMH) is a state-of-the-art, all-private room facility designed

as a peaceful, healing environment with features such as an

indoor garden atrium, complete with lush trees, plants, and

bubbling water. Located on a 28-acre urban campus, BMH

provides medical care for the nine-county region in

southwest Michigan surrounding Kalamazoo, Mich. BMH is

the flagship organization in the Bronson Healthcare Group.

BMH’s 3,182 employees and 780 medical staff manage more

than 77,000 emergency visits and 21,000 admitted patients

each year while generating $751 million in gross patient

revenues (65 percent inpatient and 35 percent outpatient).

BMH provides care in virtually every specialty: cardiology

(Heart Hospital at Bronson), general surgical services,

orthopedics, neurosciences, obstetrics (The Bronson

Birthplace), pediatrics (The Children’s Hospital at Bronson),

and adult critical care services. As a tertiary care center, BMH

includes a Level I trauma center, a high-risk pregnancy

center, a Level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the

region’s only accredited Chest Pain Center, and a primary

stroke center certified by the Joint Commission on

Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations.

The 3 Cs

Excellence is embedded in BMH’s culture and is the

thread tying together its mission, “Provide excellent

healthcare services,” its commitment to patient care, its

philosophy of nursing, and its corporate strategies known as

the “Three Cs”—Clinical Excellence, Corporate

Effectiveness, and Customer and Service Excellence. BMH’s

vision is to be a national leader in healthcare quality.

A one-page Plan for Excellence, distributed to all

employees, captures the mission, vision, values, Three Cs,

and Customer Service Standards and Expectations, which

outlines the personal accountability that every staff member

has every day, with every interaction, with every customer.

The plan is a constant reminder of the principles critical to

BMH in delivering high-quality care and excellent service. 

Over the past five years, BMH’s passion for excellence has

led to exponential growth and market leader status. BMH

exceeds the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan target for

prescribing beta-blockers for heart attack patients when they

leave the hospital by about 2 percent—a measure designed to

decrease the chances of a recurrent heart attack. BMH also

approaches top-10 percent performance, as defined by the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, for delivering

antibiotics within one hour of surgical incision, which helps

reduce the incidence of infection and the patient’s length of

stay. And, since 2004, the pediatric intensive care unit has had

no cases of ventilator-acquired pneumonia.

A number of accreditation and quality rating organizations

have designated BMH as a “best practice” organization. For

example, HealthGrades, a healthcare organization that rates

2005

Award Winner

National Institute of Standards and Technology ● Technology Administration ● Department of Commerce

Baldrige National Quality Program

Highlights

• Patient satisfaction has improved from approximately 

95 percent in 2002 to almost 97 percent in 2004. Since

2001, Arbor Associates has annually presented BMH

with its Award for Highest Overall Patient Satisfaction.

• Medicare Mortality Rate decreased from 4.8 percent in

2002 to 3.5 percent for January-July 2005, performing

better than the CareScience Expected Standard and the

CareScience Best Practice. 

• In 2004, 2005, and 2006, BMH was included in Fortune

Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For; and in

2003, 2004, and 2005, BMH was among the 100 Best

Companies for Working Mothers identified by Working

Mother Magazine.

• BMH received the Michigan Quality Leadership Award

in 2005 and 2001. 
5,000 hospitals, gave BMH its 5-star ranking—the highest

possible—for its acute myocardial infarction (heart attack)

and hip replacement practices. 

In addition to providing excellent healthcare services,

BMH focuses on patient needs with “listening and learning”

methods such as patient satisfaction surveys, post-discharge

telephone calls, focus groups, and community surveys to

ensure the hospital maintains a culture of service excellence

as well as patient loyalty. In addition, BMH leaders and

patient relations staff conduct “rounds” to talk to and learn

from patients and visitors.

Using the Gallup national database, BMH results for

Loyalty, Likelihood to Return, ranked in the 97th percentile

or better for Inpatients, Outpatient Surgery, and Outpatient

Testing.

A Leader in Technology

As healthcare continues to evolve in an informationsaturated society, investment in technology, equipment, and

facilities becomes critical for success. In 2005, BMH

dedicated over $28 million to capital investment, more than

7 percent of total budgeted expenses, in information

technology, equipment, and facilities. BMH employs

technologies such as the Picture Archiving Communications

System (PACS) that allows physicians to readily access

patient medical records and diagnostic images via computer.

In addition, the system allows physicians to provide patient

care from off-site locations by accessing patient information

through a secure Internet connection.

As a wireless campus, all visitors, patients, and staff can

access the Internet via workstations. While on site, patients

and visitors have access to maps, service directories, and other

information through interactive kiosks and the public web

site. All BMH employees have access to email and to the

BMH intranet as well. Off-site data centers to secure data and

a comprehensive disaster management process are key

elements of BMH’s plan to ensure continuity of operations

during an emergency. 

Committing to Workplace

Excellence

Since the mid-1990s, BMH has focused on becoming the

employer of choice in the region. The hospital’s Workforce

Development Plan includes strategies needed to develop and

retain the current workforce as well as those needed to

address future staff recruitment, retention, development, and

diversity. For example, to fill a critical need for respiratory

therapists, BMH provides interested staff members with

financial assistance, including benefits and payment for

tuition and books, while they are attending classes. Efforts to

create a future workforce include awarding scholarships to

children of employees to pursue college degrees in

healthcare.

To keep everyone focused on excellence and high

performance, BMH’s Staff Performance Management

System aligns individual performance with the organization’s

Three Cs, annual objectives, and action plans. Reward and

recognition are directly related to the results achieved.

Regular review and coaching are an integral part of the

SPMS process.

BMH encourages employee development, learning,

health, and wellness. Investment in employee development

has increased from $3,108 per full-time employee in 2002 to

a projected $4,453 in 2005. Employee learning has jumped

from 31 hours per full-time employee in 2002 to 108.5 hours

annualized for 2005. Three programs are designed to nurture

current and future leaders: the Leadership Initiative, the

Physician Leadership Academy, and the Management

Mentor program. Employee wellness is supported through a

number of reimbursable wellness/preventive benefits,

including personal trainers, massage therapy, smoking

cessation, and weight-loss programs. 

This commitment to workplace excellence is paying off in

a number of key areas. BMH exceeds best practice levels for

key indicators of work system performance and effectiveness

including 2005 annualized employee turnover at 5.6 percent,

registered nurse turnover at 4.7 percent, and job vacancy

rates at 5.3 percent. The rate of vacant positions for

registered nurses has been reduced from 6.5 percent in 2002

to 5 percent in 2005, significantly outperforming the national

American Nurse Credentialing Center best practice

comparison of 10.6 percent.

Bronson also has received high marks for its commitment

to the environment and its community. For three years in a

row, BMH has received the Environmental Leadership

Award presented by Hospitals for a Healthy Environment for

its efforts to reduce waste and pollution. In 2004, BMH

recycled 44 percent of its total waste stream and, by switching

to a new treatment for medical waste, decreased the amount

of waste going to landfills by 85 percent. In 2004, BMH staff

volunteered more than 50,000 hours in health-related

community activities. Since 2001, BMH has been named a

United Way “Pacesetter” organization; in 2005, its United

Way contributions totaled $330,000.

For more information:

Bronson Methodist Hospital

601 John Street Box C

Kalamazoo, MI 49007

Telephone: (269) 341-6065

Fax: (269) 341-8314

Email: serbensm@bronsonhg.org 

Web site: www.bronsonhealth.com