Excellence in Healthcare Starts with Culture

“Culture is the the sum of the examples you set, the incentives you create, and the behaviors you reward: it’s what nudges people to act in ways you’d be proud of.”

Laura Weidman Powers

A recent report from the NEJM catalyst group on High Performing Healthcare Organizations found that only 2 ideas were prominent amongst the polled clinicians, healthcare executives and clinical leaders:

  1. Create a culture of excellence
  2. Aligned goals amongst the. stakeholders

To do this requires organizations grounded on the idea that the best results are obtained in an environment of open transparent collaboration.

A collaboration of equals having different areas of expertise that are respected and utilized in order to produce superior results.

It takes visionary leaders to accomplish this. Two examples (of many) are the results obtained by

Ray Dalio (at Bridgewater Associates)

Paul Levy at Beth Israel Deaconess

We are not empowered to change the reality of Demographics shifts, Payer Mix and Reimbursement models.

We CAN determine HOW we react to these barriers. Current models don’t work mostly because key decisions are made by the few. They work hard and their motives are good but as Jessie. Jackson. said at the 1988 Democratic Convention

“Your patch isn’t big enough and, if your patch isn’t big enough, you have got to pool your patches and build a quilt bound by a common thread”