CEO Chat

Parking: The Final Frontier

October 2007

Jim Shmerling, DHA, FACHE, President and CEO of The Children's Hospital


One of the things I enjoy most about TCH is working in an environment where staff and members of the community feel comfortable providing feedback to hospital management.  In just the couple of months this blog has been up and running, I have received numerous messages that run the gamut from being very positive to comments that could not be reprinted here for fear of offending the faint of heart.  For example, last month I received comments on this blog through my phone and email from staff that sang the praises of administration for providing a “thank you” for all the hard work and long hours everyone contributed during the last several months preparing for the opening of our new hospital.  I must say that in my 27 years of working in children’s hospitals, I have never experienced the outpouring of gratitude that many shared with me.  And yes, even CEO’s appreciate an occasional “thank you” from staff, patients, families and visitors. 

Conversely, this month I have received much communication through the same vehicles described above, though this time they are not “thank you’s,” but rather expressions of frustration and anger about an issue we’re experiencing at our new hospital – parking. I am as grateful for these as I was for last month’s because they reflect that you and our guests care about this organization, in good times and bad.  Your thoughts and feedback are crucial to making this a great organization, so let me say at the outset “thank you!”

Now, let me address parking specifically.

I am as puzzled as many of you are how in the span of one week, we can go from adequate parking at the old campus to no parking at the new one.  In the planning for this campus, we designed additional space for our inpatient pavilion and outpatient clinics to accommodate growth as well as expanded parking for each.  Believe it or not, we added six hundred parking spaces on this campus which represents 50% more parking availability for staff, families and visitors than was available even a week prior to our move.  While I’d like it to happen, we certainly have not grown 50% in the past few weeks. So what is going on? 

I think there are several phenomena occurring simultaneously that have contributed to this situation.  First of all, we have nearly 200 construction workers on-site, some of whom may not be parking in their designated off-site lots.  There are some staff who chose to park on the street at the old campus who are parking in our garages now, and finally, there may have been staff who used public transportation previously but are driving themselves to work until they get comfortable with new RTD schedules and routes.  The confusion is further compounded by the fact that the parking gates, which would allow better control over access into the garages, were backordered from Germany and won’t arrive here for installation until the middle of October.  So here is what we are going to do in the short term to ease the crunch for all who need to park here at Children’s.

Within the next 30 days, we will add 96 additional parking spaces. We are going to step up our patrolling of the garages to try and ensure people are parking in their appropriate designated space.  I know it may be annoying when you pull into the property and get stopped by an officer asking for identification, but keep in mind that is how we will know who belongs where. These short-term steps will help ensure that the patient, family and visitors lot remains just that – a reliable place for all of our families and visitors to park. In addition, we will continue to ascertain who is parking where so that we can reclaim our 600, soon to be 700 new parking spaces.  Our facility and parking management teams are working tirelessly around the clock to resolve these problems as quickly as possible.

In closing, let me share with you several lessons learned I have gleaned from all this:

  1. Our communication channels are working…I got your message(s) loud and clear.
  2. Even with the most sophisticated planning process and years of preparation, we are not perfect and so issues are going to occur.
  3. When issues do occur, we need and appreciate your feedback.
  4. We need to extend care and compassion, encouragement and thanks to our security officers and the team working feverishly to fix this issue.  

We are all blessed to be working at an organization that provides such great care to children and families and to be able to do so in one of the most spectacular children’s hospitals in the country.  I also feel we are privileged to work with one another in an environment filled with such talented, passionate and communicative staff and community members as you. Thank you for your patience as we resolve the parking problems in the days ahead.

Sincerely,

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