Snow days and everyday heroes

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If you live in the north, you know about snow days. Your kids feel cheated if there aren’t a few each winter. Parents juggle to find backup plans when school closings are announced. If your employer is quick to close when there is a major storm or tells you to work from home you may breathe a sigh of relief.  You’re just glad that you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to shovel out your driveway and try to get down your unplowed street.

But hospitals never close, nor can they or should they. The everyday heroes I want to recognize are everywhere at the University of Michigan Health System. The nurses who pulled a double shift because their colleagues couldn’t make it in to relieve them. The support staff throughout the hospital who ensure patients are cared for, in a safe, clean environment. The diligent teams who ensure there are meals for patients and staff.  There are too many to mention but just think about all the hospital staff you see on a normal day – they all keep the hospital operating like nothing happened. Continue reading →

Go beyond the golden rule for great customer service

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We’ve all had those bad customer experiences: rudeness, “not my problem” attitude, bounced from person to person, being left on hold too long, not hearing back from someone as promised. You know what I’m talking about.

And we’ve all had those excellent customer service experiences: think about the difference. Was it the smile, the caring attitude, the problem solving focus, the level of ownership, the offer to help before you could even ask for help? These are just some of the attributes of good customer service.

If you provide a product or service to anyone in the work you do, it’s a good idea to look at your own customer service and how you stack up. And,who doesn’t provide some kind of product or service to others? You may have both internal or external customers.

When I started this position in late 2012, I laid out my core principles and values to my staff. Customer Service was one of them – as I said then, “while we don’t touch patients directly, we are all part of the extended care team; clinicians and caregivers rely on the systems we provide and support to care for patients in a safe manner. Excellent customer service in all our interactions is critical.” Continue reading →

Time to listen – voices of the staff

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When we encourage staff to speak up, we, as leaders, must be ready to listen. I’ve heard it said we have two ears and one mouth so we can listen more than we speak.

I encourage my staff to “make their voice heard” and have written about this. Yesterday, I participated in the University of Michigan VOICES of the Staff Town Hall Meeting.  It was the third such session in the last ten years and focused on the Future of Work. Over 100 staff from across the university and health system were brought together to help define and shape changes needed in our working environment. The goal of the meeting was to determine the most pressing challenges for all UM staff to develop VOICES work team themes for 2015.

Prior to the town hall, 600 staff were surveyed for ideas.  100 staff members who were willing to give a half day to the town hall were to turn those ideas into concrete proposals. At the end of their working session, each of the 12 groups gave a 30 second “elevator speech” pitch to our new University President, Dr. Mark Schlissel. Continue reading →

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – why it matters

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Monday, January 19th, is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, celebrated as a national holiday since the mid-80’s. I’ve worked for organizations who considered it a formal holiday and those that did not. But whether you are working or not on Monday, there are many opportunities in the coming days to celebrate the life of the great civil rights leader. There are educational forums, community breakfasts, and musical events.  I have attended many events over the years and always come away with a renewed commitment to do my part to end the injustices in our society.

I saw the film “Selma” last weekend and highly recommend it.  Why did thousands of people march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 – to ensure that African Americans could exercise their basic legal right to vote. The movie may be hard to watch in certain scenes, but we have to recognize it as part of our collective history. The violence against black people really happened as depicted. But that was a different time in our history – it was 50 years ago. Continue reading →

Lead by example

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How often have you heard that leaders have to “walk the talk”? But how often has a leader you admire disappointed you with either their comments or behavior? We ask ourselves “what were they thinking”?

Being a positive role model and leading by example is something I take very seriously – in both my professional and personal life.

I am deeply touched by the congratulatory notes and kind words I’ve received this week after it was announced that CHIME and HIMSS selected me to receive the John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year Award.

Awards like this don’t happen for CIOs without great teams.  I’m extremely grateful for all the talented and dedicated IT teams I’ve worked with over the years. Special thanks to my MCIT team at Michigan for the excellent work they do every day!

This award is named in honor of John E. Gall, Jr. who Continue reading →

Great techspectations for the inpatient experience

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Everywhere you turn technology makes our lives easier. Yet we take it for granted – until it’s not there.

I spent the holiday week in Boston with family. I observed every day, commonplace technology in my travels, our hotel stay, shopping, eating out, and more. We booked our airline tickets online. We check-in online or at an airport kiosk. We pass through security and find our current gate info on large screens conveniently located. Barely any human contact except when the flight attendant checks our seat belts and offers us pretzels and a drink. The safety information is a video and when we arrive we find the right baggage carrousel on another large screen. Continue reading →

Women and technology, part 2

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I had the chance to deliver the opening keynote talk at the NG HealthCare US Summit two weeks ago. I was to fit a 20 minute talk between the salad and the entree at a dinner. The summit organizers said I could talk about whatever topic I wanted; I just had to be inspiring.

I titled my talk: “Our Future Workforce – Unlocking the Potential”. As I posed the problem in a recent post “Technology, where are all the women?,” I talked about the fact that not enough women are going into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. I have been particularly concerned with the drop in women entering computer related fields.

Why does this problem exist, what are some of the programs that are helping address it, and what can IT leaders do about it?

The IT leadership conference where I was speaking was about 75-80% men, so I thought there might be a risk with this angle on the future workforce. I am happy to say the talk was very well received.

Afterwards, men talked to me about their daughters – whether they are in college studying in a STEM field or in grade school interested in computers and robots. Women told me about their own Continue reading →

National White Coat Die-In

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It’s been 18 days since the Ferguson grand jury decision and 9 days since the NYC grand jury decision. We have all seen the news and protests in cities around the country. Black lives matter.

Yesterday, another group demonstrated their support. Students at 70 medical schools around the country organized a national white coat die in. They lay down for fifteen and a half minutes. Eleven minutes to represent the number of times that Eric Garner said “I can’t breathe” as he was in a choke hold by police in New York City and four and a half minutes to represent the four and a half hours that Michael Brown’s body lay in the street after being shot by a police officer.

Medical students with the support of deans and faculty at prestigious schools such as Harvard, Yale, UCLA and Johns Hopkins said that racial bias is a public health issue. Physicians are trained to do no harm. They are trained to heal. They are trained to save lives. Yes, this is a public health issue. Continue reading →

Consumers expect game-changing technology

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It’s a game-changer if it has the potential to change the outcomes. We often see how new technology creates a big shift in the market.

Uber car service has been taking hold in large cities over the past few years. It’s even come to Ann Arbor. Is it a game-changer in local transportation? Looks like it. I know there is plenty of controversy right now about Uber and their business practices but you have to admit they have figured out how to leverage GPS technology and mobile devices in new ways. I experienced this first hand recently when I used an Uber to get to the airport. No question it was easy and convenient.

And that’s what consumers look for in the products and services they buy: easy, reliable, convenient, and low cost. We all love that one-click purchasing on Amazon: buy a book and it immediately downloads to our Kindle readers – a game-changer in the book business!

We, health care IT leaders, are sometimes criticized for Continue reading →

Making time for reflection

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“Hansei” is the Japanese word for reflection. One of my UMHS colleagues, Dr. Jack Billi, told me he’s impressed that I am writing a blog and sees it as an example of Hansei. He says as leaders we don’t take enough time to reflect. I agree.

A typical day for me is running from one meeting to the next, driving back and forth from my office to the hospital campus, and squeezing in email when and where I can. Evenings are more email and prepping for the next day’s meetings.

The practice of writing a blog has indeed caused me to be more thoughtful about a range of topics. I find myself observing things differently. I reached out to one of my industry colleagues, Anthony Guerra, Editor-in-Chief of healthsystemCIO.com, for advice when I first considered writing a blog earlier this year. He encouraged me to do so. He told me that through the practice of writing a blog I’d start looking at things differently, observing things in new ways. He was right. Continue reading →