--30--
With 4646 blog posts dating back to August 2006, it's time to end this adventure. After over 9-1/2 years of almost daily output, I will cease adding new posts to this blog.Why? The main reason is that it is simply time to move on to other pursuits. The time and effort spent conceiving, researching, writing, and editing articles has pushed off other projects that I've had in mind for several years. I'd like to focus on those.I'm deeply appreciative of my loyal and engaged readers. They commented directly on the blog over 22 thousand times, and many have also sent private emails with their observations. The reade...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 15, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
How to get patient opinions: Ask.
Michael Greco and his mates at Patient Opinion have developed a simple and useful way to collect opinions about medical care from patients and provide a lovely forum for interactions back and forth with the hospital and providers. The purpose is simple: To enable and enhance issue resolution, relationship restoration, and improvement. An easy-to-use website makes it possible.The folks at Eastern Health in Victoria have had PO in place for some time. Here are some stories from their health system. As you can see, things go in both directions in a helpful, direct, and friendly fashion. In fact, this f...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 15, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Callahan tells about stories
With a plethora of books about the value and importance of storytelling, we might wonder if another could offer any value. Well, the answer is yes, emphatically.Shawn Callahan's about-to-be released book Putting Stories to Work: Mastering Business Storytelling, is a must-have for your actual or digital library. It is available now on pre-order and will be on the "bookshelves" on March 20.Shawn is the founder of Anecdote, the world’s largest business storytelling company. His book is engaging and wise, and yes, replete with useful stories. His advise is concise and helpful, and--unsurprisingly--he has a way w...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 14, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
US News rankings reward transparency
Regular readers will know that I am no fan of hospital rankings and have been quite critical over the years at the ones at US News and World Report. But let's give credit to where it is due:Check out this news release. Excerpts:Patients and families who've used our rankings tell us they want more from hospitals. What they want is meaningful transparency.U.S. News will implement two closely related methodology changes this spring that could drive broader transparency. Both will affect only our rankings of Best Hospitals in Cardiology & Heart Surgery. In that specialty, we will award credit to hospitals that public...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 14, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts
It's been some time since I commented on issues of market dominance in Massachusetts, but a recent story by Bruce Mohl at Commonwealth Magazine caught my interest. He writes about a petition being supported by a health care union, SEIU, and Steward Health Care that would mandate a flattening of rate disparities among the state's hospitals.The Massachusetts Hospital Association opposes the ballot question. Mohl notes:All but one of the hospital association’s board members head institutions that would benefit financially from the ballot question, but nevertheless they have formed a united front against it. Their r...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 13, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Getting past denial in Victoria
You have to be willing to acknowlege your problems before you can remedy them. If I were to characterize the state of public and private hospital care in the state of Victoria, Australia, I'd have to say that this first step is lacking. Both the public and private hospital systems and the goverment regulators who oversee them are in a state of denial with regard to the level of harm being caused to the public by inadequate attention to quality and safety deficiencies. The health system as a whole, also, is characterized by an uwillingness to engage patients and families in the appraisal and improvement of care....
Source: Not running a hospital - March 12, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Time for a " no dickheads " rule
This article < /a > notes: < br / > < br / > < i > Much of the polarization dividing American politics was fueled not just by gerrymandering or money in politics or the other oft-cited variables, but by an unnoticed but surprisingly large electoral group — authoritarians. < /i > < br / > < br / > < i > This trend had been accelerated in recent years by demographic and economic changes such as immigration, which " activated " authoritarian tendencies, leading many Americans to seek out a strongman leader who would preserve a status quo they feel is under threat and impose order on a world they perceive as increas...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 9, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Time for a "no dickheads" rule
This article notes: Much of the polarization dividing American politics was fueled not just by gerrymandering or money in politics or the other oft-cited variables, but by an unnoticed but surprisingly large electoral group — authoritarians.This trend had been accelerated in recent years by demographic and economic changes such as immigration, which "activated" authoritarian tendencies, leading many Americans to seek out a strongman leader who would preserve a status quo they feel is under threat and impose order on a world they perceive as increasingly alien.There was never a more important time for people of inf...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 9, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Mateship
You can't be here in Australia for very long before hearing about the concept of "mateship." Here are some explanations:Wikipedia says: "Mateship is an Australian cultural idiom that embodies equality, loyalty and friendship."But it goes further than that. This government site says:'Mateship' is a concept that can be traced back to early colonial times. The harsh environment in which convicts and new settlers found themselves meant that men and women closely relied on each other for all sorts of help. In Australia, a 'mate' is more than just a friend. It's a term that implies a sense of shared experience, m...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 9, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
What can I do? May Wong answered the question.
The most common question I get--worldwide--after I give a talk or seminar on creating a learning organization to improve clinical processes in hospitals is: "I really like what you are saying, but what can I do if those above me in the organization have not adopted the philosophy you espouse." I respond by saying, "Start small, and just try to get something fixed in your area, working with other like-minded people. Maybe the ideas will spread organically. Maybe they won't, but at least you will have made things better for some."Well, May Wong from Sydney didn't need my advice. My buddy Sarah Dalton at the...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 9, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Staff at work
One of the great pleasures of being ex-CEO of a hospital is to visit other places around the world and see the staff in action. Whatever you might have heard about the stresses and problems faced by doctors and nurses and others, there remains an underlying sense of purpose and commitment that often shines through.Here's a example, from the theatre in which young patients at Royal Children's Hospital receive lumbar punctures and bone marrow tests to receive chemotherapy and/or to assess their progress with regard to leukemia treatments. I offer the explanation totally in pictures, which pretty well tell the sto...
Source: Not running a hospital - March 4, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
What will their legacy be?
A danger of being "Thinker in Residence" for several months here in the state of Victoria, Australia, is the danger of diagnostic anchoring--too quickly reaching conclusions about the state of the health care system--followed by confirmation bias--valuing only those observations that support the conclusion you've reached, while ignoring other data. With cognitive errors of this sort, the best defense in avoiding them is to be aware of their existence. So, I've tried assiduously to be careful during my visit here. But the time has come to offer my considered view on several matters.In a recent blog post, I...
Source: Not running a hospital - February 29, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Hear me. Do you know me?
It isn't often that I can report that I was honored to see a play, but such was the case recently when I was invited to view the showing of a short four-person drama at West Gippsland Hospital in Warragul and especially because I was permitted to attend the staff discussion that followed the performance. Here's the background:The Australian Institute for Patient and Family Centred Care was established a few years ago by Catherine Crock and colleagues to promote just what its name implies. As noted:We aim to to transform people’s experience of healthcare through a three-fold approach:Develop partnerships betwe...
Source: Not running a hospital - February 27, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Towards zero on the roads in Oz
In America, drivers don't try to kill other drivers. In Australia, drivers try not to kill other drivers.After almost three months here, I've decided that this difference in attitudes is the biggest thing that separates these two cultures.America was built on a culture of individualism, sometimes called "rugged individualism." In Australia, society is characterized by a much greater degree of communitarianism.The place of traffic fatalities in the two countries provides a nice example.There are about 32,000 traffic-related fatalities in the US per year, about 10 per 100,000 population. I think if you were to as...
Source: Not running a hospital - February 27, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
Ultimate advice
When I was growing up, ultimate (originally known as ultimate frisbee) had not yet been invented. While we played with frisbees, it was mainly just a lot of tossing them around. Since then, the sport has developed and highly skilled players and teams compete worldwide.I've had a forced sabbatical from playing soccer here in Melbourne (no one plays during the summer apparently), but have been lucky to be invited to join a local co-ed division three ultimate team. It's been great fun to play a sport which in which the rules are self-enforced, i.e., without referees, and where the "spirit of the game" is the...
Source: Not running a hospital - February 22, 2016 Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs
