Where does improving patient care actually begin?

In healthcare, it's simple to say that we put the patient in the center of everything we do. But staying patient centered day-in and day-out is not the current reality. Most of us are knee-deep in initiatives, putting out fires, and treating the symptoms of our recurring foundational problems. It's easy for the patient to get lost in the process, when as leaders, we're caught up in a cycle of applying quick fixes, just to keep our heads above water.

The only way to break the cycle is to focus on "what matters most to patients," as the starting point and core of your leadership strategy. It's imperative to understand the relationship between leadership and patient needs if you want to best serve everyone.

Take Away: Your leadership strategy must be based on patient needs.

What makes Patient Driven Leadership specifically designed for healthcare?

It is a practice designed by executives and physicians that focuses a leadership strategy based on patient needs. The practice was created after ten years and hundreds of interviews with physicians and executives, and ensures that your workforce shows up as proactive problem solvers for their patients.

Take-away: Patient Driven Leadership is a daily practice that connects leadership competencies to patient needs.

What are Patient Driven Leaders doing today?

In hospitals across the country, Patient Driven Leaders are building problem solving teams through their new understanding and application of role clarity, by concentrating on the importance of organizational role, versus "just doing your job." Having everyone understand the meaning of a well defined role is the first step toward patient-centered teamwork.

Take-away: Role Clarity is the critical starting point to building patient-centered, problem solving teams.

What is the link between the practice of Patient Driven Leadership and improved patient care?

When applied as a leadership strategy, role clarity enables productive team problem solving. It removes previous obstacles and focuses all efforts on improving patient trust and care.

Take-away: Teamwork derived from role clarity directly benefits patients.

Why is team problem solving the answer?

No one person is as smart and capable as a combined group of their peers. Of the hundreds of organizations we've worked with, we've seen vast differences between hospitals composed of individuals "doing their own thing," and hospitals composed of teams capable of combining their know-how (community intelligence) to solve problems on the patient's behalf. The individual-oriented cultures are continually struggling to keep up with initiatives and treat recurring symptoms, while the team-based cultures use a structured practice to identify the root cause of their foundational problems. Creating a teamwork culture enables leaders to leverage their entire staffs to solve organizational challenges.

Take-away: Two, three, four heads, are better than one. Leading a staff comprised of problem solving teams will result in greater capacity, reduced waste (time), and unneeded initiatives.

How does becoming a Patient Driven Leader benefit my leadership strategy and my organization?

Patient Driven Leaders realize that effective teams are their organization's most valuable asset. Through a daily practice, they create environments where everyone possesses the leadership behaviors needed to combine efforts and solve problems together. Leaders with "community intelligent" teams create cultures that improve patient care by building trust. As teams build trust and become more self-organized, their ability to solve operational problems dramatically increases.

Take-away: Leaders learn how to best leverage their most important asset (people) by creating a culture where everyone shows up as self-organized teams, capable of promoting patient trust and solving organizational problems.

How it works.>>