Archive for 'Building on Success'
Collaborative Insight: Post 76
As I reflect on major insights that I have experienced over the past three decades, most have arisen from talking with women:
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In Nursing Collaboration, I celebrated Nikki who took me aside during a busy ED shift and told me, “Just because this is the 7th patient you have seen with a sprained ankle in the past hour, does not mean that it was her 7th ankle sprain.”
In the same post, I also mentioned the 10 nurses who told me Read more »
Posted: September 23rd, 2009 under Building on Success.
Comments: none
Collaborative Listening: Post 70
A hospital CEO wrote me in April 2009:
Thank you for the contact; however, at this time, I do not seem to have need of your expertise. What practices I don’t own already in the community don’t readily lend themselves to collaboration. They are staunch, stand-alone, small, independent practices that don’t want to change anything about the way they operate.
I empathize with the way he feels. My father was a solo-practice neurosurgeon from 1952-77. One of our favorite stories was that while Read more »
Posted: June 21st, 2009 under Building on Success.
Comments: 6
Collaborative Steps
It’s time for some shameless self-promotion. Lee Milteer wrote that in difficult times, we must give ourselves permission to have some positive personal awards.
The photo, which I received this week from the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), shows me accepting the Dean Conley Award from Chris Van Gorder, President and CEO of Scripps Health and Chairman-Elect of the American College of Healthcare Executives. The Conley Award, Read more »
Posted: June 5th, 2009 under Building on Success.
Comments: 2
Collaborative Competency
In “A Practicing Surgeon Dissects Issues in Physician-Hospital Relations,” I wrote that most physicians lack formal training in communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution.
I owe the inspiration for this post to two people:
1) Catherine Henderson, a Graduate Medical Education Consultant with Partners in Medical Education, Inc. reminded me that a decade ago, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME Read more »
Posted: May 30th, 2009 under Building on Success.
Comments: none
Collaborative Workout
During business school, I took a course on Organizational Change with Bill Joyce, one of the consultants who helped design the GE workout program to:
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realize tangible improvements within a short time
reduce bureaucratic barriers that hinder decision making and implementation
expose and overcome misalignment of incentives
generate ideas at every level
increase visibility
improve accountability
I wondered why healthcare organizations did not take advantage of the concept and process until I read What Top-Performing Healthcare Organizations Know: 7 Proven Steps for Read more »
Posted: February 16th, 2009 under Building on Success.
Comments: 1
Collaborative Fairness
“Where is the fairness?” asked an orthopedic surgeon with whom I will be presenting at the ACHE Congress March, 24, 2009 on adding new tools to your physician-hospital relations toolkit. He has been Department Chair, so he understands the challenges that physicians pose.
His question related to issues regarding employment, i.e. how expensive it was for him to hire a new associate, provide him or her with office space and computer connectivity, and wait for a year till he or she Read more »
Posted: January 17th, 2009 under Building on Success.
Comments: 6
Collaborative Language
Following up on my last post, Collaborative Control, I realized that a source of conflict between physicians and hospital leaders may involve different meanings of the same word. Just as collaborate may mean to work together for some people, it may connote partnering with the enemy, being coopted, or going to the dark side for others.
Dr. David Hurley aptly commented on my last post that control is an illusion. We all can recall times that we Read more »
Posted: September 14th, 2008 under Building on Success.
Comments: 1
Collaborative Competition
Anybody who has worked with physicians has heard the comment, “Organizing doctors is like herding cats; you just get scratched.” When I finished business school a decade ago, a physician asked me, “What is the difference between business school and medical school?” I replied, “There was a lot more memorization in medical school than business school. Also, 30-50% of my grade in every course that I took in business school came from team projects.” I have asked over 2,000 Read more »
Posted: June 10th, 2008 under Building on Success.
Comments: 6
Collaborative Flow
I want to bring readers’ attention to a well-written book that has implications for all of us who are passionate about collaboration, Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow, by Jensen, Mayer, Welch, and Haraden; Health Administration Press, (http://www.ache.org/pubs/redesign/productcatalog.cfm?pc=WWW1-2073. Also available at http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Smooth-Patient-Flow-Jensen/dp/1567932657/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203717356&sr=8-1.)
The authors discuss six dimensions of flow:
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Efficiency:
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it is not just the quantity of time, but also how providers spend their time
they point out the importance of doing fast things (non-value added tasks or routine, automated tasks) quickly and slow things Read more »
Posted: February 24th, 2008 under Building on Success.
Comments: 2
Collaborative Navigation
Mauteen Bisognano and James Conway have written a great book, 10 Powerful Ideas for Improving Patient Care: Book 4. Chicago . Health Administration Press. 2008.
The chapter that I particularly enjoyed was “Use Patient Navigation,” where they cited the work of an oncologic surgeon, Dr. Harold Freeman, with patient navigators at Harlem Hospital. Patient navigators are knowledgeable healthcare professionals or volunteers who help cancer patients through the entire continuum of care. A trained navigator can:
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prepare patients and identify barriers
assist with Read more »
Posted: February 12th, 2008 under Building on Success.
Comments: none




