Every healthcare provider will tell you that patients are customers, and customers can take their business elsewhere if they are unhappy about any aspect of their experience. To keep patients, and thus reimbursement, coming in the door, hospitals must focus on achieving strong patient...
Whenever medical staff leaders discuss medical staff engagement and alignment, talk of money isn’t far behind. Whereas 30 years ago, serving in a medical staff leadership role was par for the course, today physicians consider it going above and beyond the call of duty. Many hospitals offer...
Better Times Hospital is in crisis. The medical staff is deeply rooted in a departmental structure that relies heavily on committees, and few physicians want to serve on them. Joe, the medical staff president, has just finished reading Leading Change by John Kotter and has...
If you took on a new job, you’d expect your employer to tell you what your duties entailed, what time to show up, and how “good performance” is defined within your role. For physicians, that doesn’t always happen. They often arrive on their first day at a hospital with no rules or expectations...
According to a recent Office of Inspector General (OIG) report, Hospital Incident Reporting Systems Do Not Capture Most Patient Harm (http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-09-00091.pdf), hospital reporting systems aren’t...
Back in 2007, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement created the Triple Aim, which challenges organizations to provide better patient care, achieve population health, and lower costs. Since then, several areas have been identified as barriers to achieving the Triple Aim. First on that list is...