SaferPatients

Any hospital wising to implement a sustainable culture of safety MUST have effective change management skills among its leadership team.

 

 

One of the first and most critical elements of effective change management is the need to identify and articulate, as clearly and forcefully as possible, the need to ‘do something different’ in order to assure survival. 

 

 

That “need to doing something different” is the “burning platform.” Your organization is on it, and if you don’t do something different NOW, the platform will burn up and destroy everything on it.

 

 

If you need help determining your “burning platform” to propel your change initiative forward, perhaps the pending health care reform movement will provide one. Here are the common threads in the reform discussion:

1.  The poplar estimate is that an additional 30 million insured healthcare consumers will flood into the present health care system and infrastructure as a result of these reforms.

2.  The ‘quid pro quo’ of expanding the pool of insured people in the U.S. (and significantly increasing the demand for healthcare services) appears to be a long term series of reimbursement reductions of approximately $150 billion over the next 10 years - an estimated $2.7 million in annual concessions per hospital!

3.   With the increased demand, your system of care will be stretched to the max. If it is not already prepared for the crush of new business with a well designed safety system supported by a true culture of safety, your errors and adverse outcomes will increase.

4.  Payers will increase their resolve and enforcement of policies of not paying for errors or shoddy care. They will have to wring cost reduction out of the system to pay for the reform. Not paying for errors and mistakes will be a point of emphasis.

5.  Under an avalanche of new users, and unprepared by having well designed safety systems and a strong culture of safety, many serious errors will be made by health care facilities. Those will be prominently reported in the press. Just as in the National Health Service in the U.K., it will seem like a cottage industry has sprung up around reporting heinous mistakes made by ill prepared health care organizations. As they say in the press, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

 

In summary, the typical U.S. hospital will see significantly higher demand for services but receive less reimbursement for care. Many hospitals will not be prepared for this “new normal” with an efficient, safe system of delivering care and will rapidly lose money and market share. Their survival will not be assured.

 

 

This situation is a true ‘burning platform’ for working smarter and safer, not harder!

 

 

One undeniable truth is that human beings are not infallible and will make errors. Human beings under the stress of doing more with less will make even more errors. If you are not thinking now about how to change your culture to create a safe, efficient system of care in your facility, when will you start?

 

 

Act now to assure your survival - invest in a culture of safety.

 

 

 

 

 

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