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.
Do you really want to go to a hospital or provider that does not constantly strive for perfection? Not me.
ReplyDeleteIf you like this kind of work, this might be where you want to do your internship!
A somewhat-jaded psychology professor of mine (a firm believer in Skinnerian principles of behavior modification) also thought human beings were governed by Newton's law of conservation of energy. In other words, this professor felt we're essentially programmed to be lazy, to do only what's necessary to "get by," requiring constant prodding and pushing, and that improving on that mindset required Skinnerian operant conditioning of rewards and punishment. Yes, that professor was very jaded.
ReplyDeleteBut it brings me to my point: you identified an outstanding goal, one which can only improve patient care as well as the hospital's business results. Now the tricky part. Developing an effective and motivating workplace culture so employees feel empowered about pulling.
May I recommend the leadership text used in my Army-Baylor graduate program? It's a very enjoyable read, easy to digest, and quite practical in the real world. I highly recommend you read it over a semester break. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leadership_Challenge#.22The_Five_Practices_of_Exemplary_Leadership.22
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteLEAN is very important in health care and you will continue to learn more about this as you enter into life post-graduation. I agree with your hopes to work for a "perfect" organization. One more thing I would add is how important metrics and quality data are in determining how "perfect" a hospital is. There is so much data out there, but a lot of it also has to be adjusted for things like higher acuity levels or different demographics. As you learn more about quality metrics, think about how the data is being analyzed and what data points are important and what may not be. It is not enough just to track things for tracking's sake, but rather to implement actionable improvement plans based off of these results.