Values program allows employees to set performance standards

Through a pilot program in values enrichment at Sacred Heart Medical Center, Spokane, WA, employees learned to evaluate their own and others' work behaviors. They identified the values that they believed would promote the medical center's best interests, and they suggested actions that could help or hinder the attainment of five key values: compassion, care of the poor, respect for the dignity of every person, high-quality care of the whole person, and teamwork in care giving. Each of the medical center's 32 departments as well as its management system committee prepared evaluation tools to measure employee performance. These tools, based on employee suggestions, are essential to the institution's ongoing attention to its values. Employee screening procedures, including an application form, to discern potential employees' readiness to further the institution's stated values also were developed. Other program accomplishments included the formation of an ethics committee, recruitment of a staff ethicist, and production of a videotape for use in employee orientation and in-service sessions.