Collaborative Core Values
I love working at places that live their values. I spoke at the annual physician retreat at St. Vincent Hospital, Indiana, where as a member of Ascension Health, their core values call them to:
- Service of the poor: generosity of spirit for persons most in need
- Integrity: inspiring trust through personal leadership
- Wisdom: integrating excellence and stewardship
- Dedication: affirming the hope and joy of our ministry
- Reverence: respect and compassion for the dignity and diversity of life
- Creativity: courageous innovation
Dr. Cohn Facilitating Medical Staff Retreat
I spoke on physician engagement, giving examples of physician champions who improved care for their communities by improving clinical outcomes and slashing expenses. I was impressed that physicians and administrators working together in their health system had dropped supply costs from 19% to 14% of net patient service revenue.
Kerry Johson followed, talking about highly reliable healthcare. He is the founding partner of Healthcare Performance Improvement, which was the company that Sentara Healthcare utilized to build a sustainable culture of safety. He pointed out that the medical staff is critical to sustain safety core values and make error prevention the norm. Errors occur most commonly in the process of patient handoffs.
Then, Ann Murtlow discussed the parallels of her turnaround of Indiana Power and Light (IPL) with healthcare challenges. Both cultures need to reinvent themselves to survive in a climate of disruptive change. To rebuild trust, she:
- apologized for past mistakes
- listened to people’s complaints and encouraged them to improve processes
- built a credible team with long-term relationships to the community, media, and city and state leaders
- communicate often via face-to-face, electronic, video, and print media
- followed through and kept promises
- was transparent, fair, truthful, and compassionate
She encouraged everyone in the audience to adopt as core values to:
- be courageous
- think broadly
- enable others
- deliver results
The day went by quickly because the audience and the speakers were engaged and fed off one another’s energy. I felt proud to be part of an organization whose outlook and slope are clearly positive.
As always, I welcome your input to improve healthcare collaboration.
Kenneth H. Cohn
© 2011, all rights reserved
Disclosure:
I have not received any compensation for writing this content. I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein.
Posted in Physician Engagement
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