Tag Archives: culture

Improving value, reducing costs

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In the current world of health care, most provider organizations are undertaking significant cost management efforts. Health care providers need to deliver care more cost effectively while improving canstockphoto17385502value. We are no exception.

At University Hospitals we call it “Value Improvement Program” (VIP). At the University of Michigan Health System, we called it “Value and Margin Improvement” (VMI). I don’t remember what we called it at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, but it was similar.

Often it starts with the use of outside consultants. They identify the overall opportunity at a high level using the organization’s cost data and industry benchmarks. In some cases, consultants stay on and help staff the teams. In other cases, the organization staffs the teams internally to do a deeper dive, find the specific opportunities, and implement.

Depending on an organization’s executive leadership, culture, management and staff buy-in and their approach to system wide initiatives, results can vary greatly. Continue reading →

Happy Sesquicentennial!

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Most of us won’t live to be a 100. Yet organizations that are the foundation of our communities celebrate 100 year or more anniversaries. I have been fortunate to be part of 225 and 150 year anniversaries at my canstockphoto16622580churches in Worcester, MA and Ann Arbor, MI. Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston was making plans for its 100th anniversary celebration when I left there in 2012 for the University of Michigan Health System, yet another institution with a long and rich history. And now as a member of the University Hospitals team in Cleveland, I am joining in celebrating our 150th or Sesquicentennial anniversary.

The UH history dates back to May 14th, 1866 when a single hospital in a two story wooden house was established. As noted on our new UH 150th website, “For 150 years, the people of Northeast Ohio have looked to University Hospitals as a trusted health care provider. Our roots date back to 1866, when civic leaders established a hospital in a small Cleveland home to care for the sick and disabled. From these humble beginnings, UH has grown into a multihospital system, serving 1 million people annually. The medical advancements made at UH touch lives worldwide, yet we remain true to our roots as a community health care provider.”

UH has a long history of care and caring. To continue that commitment to our community, Continue reading →

Corporate functions, local service

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Mergers and acquisitions in health care have been common in recent years. Small community hospitals are becoming part of much larger integrated health systems.  One of the common challenges these canstockphoto34427718systems face is providing effective local service from central corporate departments.

Health systems may span a large metropolitan area, a portion of a state, or a multi-state region. And there are systems with a national footprint.

The health systems I’ve worked for are mostly the first; they have covered a large metropolitan area. Local hospitals may be as much as 100 miles apart and the corporate office somewhere in the middle.  While much of the work goes on every day without face to face interaction, people are often expected to drive to key meetings either at the corporate office or at the hospitals. But the distances and the traffic can challenge support models for corporate functions. Continue reading →

Transformative Values

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Chris Greene Hutchings is staff specialist in the Office of the CIO.  We have worked together closely during my tenure at UMHS. With my pending departure, Chris asked to be guest blogger this week.  

 

When the leader you report to announces she is leaving, a parade of emotions marches through your life.

The first is denial. “NO!  She can’t leave, because we need to. . .”

Then it’s the blues. “What does this mean for me?”

And ultimately, acceptance. “We did some good work, didn’t we?”

It’s a bittersweet feeling because it’s the first time you stop to look back and see how far you have come together. And you realize you didn’t take enough time to celebrate the successes, or appreciate the good along the way.

Our CIO, Sue, is starting the next chapter in her professional life. As I look back, I see how much our organization has changed. Continue reading →

The journey continues

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What better time than year end to reflect on our collective progress as an IT team. You will see a lot of “top 10” type stories in December – top trends, breakthroughs, stories, and even top predictions for the coming year. I’ll leave those to people with far more time to research and write. What I’d like to share is the progress my incredible IT team has made in partnership with our many internal customers at UMHS in 2015. These are common journeys for health care CIOs around the country. Continue reading →

Creating a security culture

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I wrote recently that if the CIO is the only one worrying about the EHR implementation, it’s a problem. Likewise, if the CIO and the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) are the only ones thinking about IT security, it’s a problem.  You only have to read the news any given week to see the rising number of breaches within health care – the recent Anthem breach being the biggest to date with over 80 million records involved.  And there is a new breach we are all hearing about as of this week – Premera Blue Cross potentially involving financial and medical records of up to 11 million customers.

IT security is a common topic amongst health care CIOs these days. We are continually trying to learn from one another and share best practices.

I recently had a third party IT security assessment done for our health system in order to identify key gaps and get recommendations to strengthen our IT security program. One of the best pieces in the final report was about creating a security culture. So what’s a security culture?

Signs an organization has developed a security culture include the following: 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 →

Culture change, slow and steady

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You start in a new leadership position and you want to make changes.  Should be easy, right? After all, you’re the boss. You call the shots.Culture change

Not so.

You inherit a history and a culture, ways of working and thinking and behaving. You inherit a leadership team and a staff. You inherit a department that works within a broader organization and its culture. Still, you are the leader; you can make some changes, but it will take more time.

When I started at UMHS, there had been a 6 month gap with an internal interim CIO. She had kept things going but was happy to handoff to me. Continue reading →