From the June 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
As an organization we celebrate the many ideas and contributions to operational efficiency by our caregivers on a monthly basis. The celebrations are announced in advance and are held on one of our numerous campuses in central Massachusetts.
Leadership support and commitment
Each week, our senior leaders perform executive rounding for one hour in areas they don’t oversee in their daily responsibilities. This is an opportunity for them to directly engage with our front-line caregivers to see firsthand the challenges they face on a daily basis. We want our executives to make decisions based on what we learn when we are on the floors with our caregivers, not just from the pile of spreadsheets and reports that come across our desks. When our senior leaders round they have three objectives:
Listen and learn: Find out how our caregivers do their work and the problems they face.
Coach: Support and encourage their use of idea boards to drive innovation.
Answer questions: Find out what’s going on with their department/teams and how it impacts our health care system. Our executives are also there to aid their rounded departments with “ideas needing help.” Some ideas are large in scope and may need another level of approval or additional funding before being implemented. Executives can work with organizational leaders to make sure the department’s ideas are heard and acted upon. Last year we employed a $1 million Innovation Fund to allow our departments to leverage additional resources to bring their ideas to implementation.
Innovation supports change
UMass Memorial Health Care is an organization on the move. We have made giant strides to become a more integrated system and increase our services to the community. We have seen numerous improvements in our operating and financial performance. None of this would be possible without the support of our caregivers and their 25,000- plus ideas on how we can work smarter and more efficiently in order to focus more of our time providing quality care to our patients.
About the author: Dr. Eric W. Dickson is president and CEO of UMass Memorial HealthCare, a four-hospital, fully integrated health care delivery system with over 1,000 acute care beds and 1,100 employed physicians. Dr. Dickson is also a practicing emergency medicine physician and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.Back to HCB News
