Hospital Leaders Whom I Admire: Post 82
Happy Valentine’s Day. I apologize that three weeks have elapsed since my last post:
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My wife and I put our house on the market. After living there 12 years, I underestimated the amount of work that it would take to have it ready to show; please see my post on the benefits of decluttering, including before and after photos; now that we are empty-nesters, my wife and I plan to move to the North shore of Massachusetts (PS our Read more »
Posted: February 14th, 2010 under Physician Engagement.
Comments: none
A Massachusetts Surgeon Weighs in on the Meaning of Scott Brown’s Senate Victory: Post 81
Warning to readers: This post, like a previous post, Gotcha: A surgeon dissects patient-centered care, contains more rant than reason. Those who feel passionately that Congress is doing a great job dealing with the people’s healthcare should look elsewhere for confirmation of their views.
In An Interview with Stuart Altman, this distinguished healthcare economist mentioned Altman’s Law, that advocacy groups seek to preserve the status quo rather than adopt another plan that might disadvantage their interests.
January Read more »
Posted: January 24th, 2010 under WaterCooler Collaboration.
Comments: 4
Collaborative Learning: Post 80
In Candid Reflections on Bad Behavior, I reflected on the recently published ACPE Doctor-Nurse Behavior Study, in which 2,124 physicians and 696 nurses participated. Nearly 85% of respondents experienced degrading comments, 73% yelling, 49% cursing, and 38% refusing to work together.
Those of you who have been with me know that I am on a continuous healing journey from being labeled “the problem” to helping find solutions. Please let me recount a Read more »
Posted: November 19th, 2009 under Learning.
Comments: none
Collaboration to Prevent Sabotage: Post 79
I join with thousands of others decrying the violence that took the lives of our troops at Fort Hood yesterday. My heart goes out to their friends and families. I pray that something will come of this event that will prevent a similar crisis from ever happening again.
The parallel with healthcare is what compels me to write today. Laurence Barton, who was VP for crisis management at Motorola, calls sabotage the undisclosed crime in Crisis Leadership Now: Read more »
Posted: November 6th, 2009 under WaterCooler Collaboration.
Comments: 1
Collaborative Crisis: Post 78
As I described in Dealing with a Medical Staff in Crisis, I have witnessed the power of independent community physicians to affect hospital revenues and hiring. The quickest way to explain how we got to this point, is to refer to Maslow’s Pyramid, where each party took a lofty view of its own goals (self-actualization, at the top of the pyramid) and a skeptical view of the other side, dismissing their concerns as Read more »
Posted: November 1st, 2009 under Physician Engagement.
Comments: none
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 Wishes: Post 75
In residency, I learned that it is a sign of strength to admit ignorance and ask for help. While writing my latest column for the Journal of Healthcare Management on Innovation in the Face of Recession, I realized that little has been written recently on that subject in healthcare.
So, I asked respected thought leaders what they were doing and what was working. I ended with the following question:
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If you could be granted three wishes, what would you request?
Their responses fell into several thought-provoking clusters:
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Regarding healthcare reform, Read more »
Posted: September 5th, 2009 under Learning.
Comments: none
Collaborative Sensemaking: Post 74
I spent a small part of my recent vacation meeting with thought leaders in New England to discuss trends and implications for the coming year. One of my most pleasurable meetings took place at a winery and restaurant in the Nashoba Valley, where I talked with Dr. Kate Goonan about her new book, Journey to Excellence: How Baldrige Healthcare Leaders Succeed.
The premise of the book, as stated in the foreword, is that although there may be no Read more »
Posted: August 8th, 2009 under Learning.
Comments: 1
Collaborative Uncertainty: Post 73
I just read a summary of Ram Charan’s new book, Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, a provocative strategy for dealing with recession and emerging stronger. The author recommends that executives act quickly and decisively to prepare for the worst-case scenario, with the optimism that if they encounter a situation that is not as bad as forecasted, they will be in better shape to thrive when the Read more »
Posted: July 25th, 2009 under Learning.
Comments: 1
Collaborative Guilds: Post 72
I don’t see why we should need to resort to degrading, immature tactics to get doctors to do what everyone knows they should do in the first place.
This comment, from a VP at a midwestern hospital during a discussion of healthy competition at a recent ACHE seminar that I taught, surprised me. He was the first to protest the strategy of using competition whenever people felt frustrated by the difficulty of herding cats, Read more »
Posted: July 18th, 2009 under WaterCooler Collaboration.
Comments: none
