Post 7: Long Term Care

I just finished listening a podcast conducted by Professor Bonica with the COO of Alliance Management Services, Tom Lavallee. I figured I would take this opportunity to write my blog about what I learned about the importance of long term care and some advice that Tom had for being a good leader. Long term care has been something that I really haven't had much desire to pursue my career in. However, after listening to this podcast, I learned just how important it is to healthcare overall and how you can really make a fulfilling career out of it. I also learned just how much the industry has changed over the years and how nursing homes have really developed into more complex facilities with the ability to take care of much sicker patients. Tom mentioned how the Baby Boomer generation is growing old and that there will be a rapid increase in the amount of people who will need a place to go such as a nursing home. It is definitely an area that is not going anywhere for a while.

Tom also talked about what he believes makes a good leader. He said the leaders need to set the tone for their organization and be will to go out there and be engaged with their staff. This reminded me of the idea of not being a "carpet administrator", which Professor Bonica has talked about previously in class. The idea behind not being a carpet administrator is that you will leave your carpeted office and go out on the patient floors and make yourself very present to the staff. Another good piece of advice he had was that "whatever you expect out of your employees, you better be doing it yourself". I thought that this was a really great piece of advice because your employees will have so much more respect for you if they know that you are willing to put in the work as well and not just sit there and demand things from them. By having employees that trust and respect you, you will have a much more successful organization.

Link to podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/healthleaderforge/abridged-thomas-c-lavallee-coo-alliance-health-management-services

Post 6: Relationships

This past Friday we had an ACHE event at UNH called "Shaping the Future: Leadership and Public Policy in Healthcare." This event included a panel of healthcare executives talking to us about various topics involving leadership in healthcare. One of the things that stuck out the most to me was when they talked about the importance of creating good relationships with the people around you. They emphasized the fact that you can never do anything alone, and that even if you come up with an idea by yourself, you will always need a group of people behind you to help make it happen. Healthcare is extremely collaborative, and it is imperative that a staff can successfully work together in order to get things done.

As a leader, I think it is important to always know your strengths and what you are really good at. Along with this, you also need to know what your weaknesses are and what you will need help with in order to get something done. This idea really stuck with me personally because I know that I am a perfectionist and always want to be able to do everything on my own. For example, in group projects, I tend to be the person that tries to take on everything and make sure it is done perfectly. One thing I have been working on this year is acknowledging the fact that others may be better at some things than I am, and that is okay. Being able to work with others and form relationships where you can acknowledge each other's strengths and weaknesses and work together towards a common goal is a skill that is imperative in not only healthcare, but any work environment. In order to be a good manager, you need to be aware of what your staff is capable of and having trust in them that they know what they're doing and that they will do the right thing.

Post 5: Performance Improvement

This week in class we had a guest presentation from a high level executive working in performance improvement. During this presentation, I learned just how important quality and performance improvement is to the entire hospital. One of the things he talked about in his presentation was the five principles of LEAN: value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. I think that one thing all departments of a hospital should strive for and always be thinking about is perfection. As a manager, I hope to one day continuously inspire my employees to work towards perfection. Even though there really is no such thing as a "perfect" hospital, we should be trying to get as close to it as possible. We should never settle for being just good enough, and should always be thinking about what more we could do to become a perfectly operating organization.

Performance improvement is an area of healthcare that I am very interested in. It connects to every single area of an organization and is extremely important to the success of a hospital. All managers should be understanding of performance improvement and always willing to comply to anything that could help make them better.