As the saying goes, “asking for help doesn’t mean that you are weak, it means that you are wise.” Recognizing your organization’s strengths and knowing when an outside perspective is needed to drive greater levels of performance is the forward-thinking attitude that successful healthcare leaders embody. While sourcing the support of a consulting team isn’t always the most “popular” approach, it can be the most effective.
Category: Articles
Avoiding Productivity Pitfalls
Managing labor has become a delicate balancing act between providing the right level of staff and keeping expenses down. Implementing a meaningful staffing model while maintaining the unique values, beliefs, and overall culture of the organization should be a hospital's primary focus to ensure sustainability. Productivity, however, is a concept that is not fully understood within the healthcare industry.
Hiring More is Becoming Unsustainable!
According to a recent article, the turnover rate in the healthcare industry has increased by 5%, across all job categories, over the last decade, with the average hospital turning over 85.2% of its workforce since 2013 (1). These stats are staggering, considering how time-consuming and costly recruitment efforts can be, especially given the ever-shrinking candidate pool that currently exists.
Keepin’ it Productive!
We are all familiar with the term “death by meeting.” It refers to the seemingly endless cycle of leaders having meetings to prepare for other meetings during which strategies are discussed that require more meetings to implement! It’s exhausting to say, let alone live. Instead of having a positive impact on operations, it has quite the opposite effect.
Happy New Year!
As the world prepares to bid 2019 farewell and embrace the next decade with the start of 2020, people everywhere are spending their time making New Year’s resolutions as they celebrate the holidays and wait for the ball to drop from Time’s Square. Sadly, as we all know too well, those self-promises and good intentions only tend to last weeks, days or even hours before they are abandoned or forgotten. The problem, or loophole that lets so many people off the proverbial hook, lies in how a resolution is actually defined.
Paralysis by Analysis
It’s a condition of information over-load fueled by the strong desire for more knowledge and more data, which is easily satisfied by the touch of a button or the swipe of a finger thanks to today’s technology. Healthcare leaders require greater amounts of evidence to drive their decision-making processes. While it is essential to thoroughly evaluate operations and draw informed conclusions, is this enhanced analytical mindset and strong reliance on data becoming more detrimental than beneficial? Here are three quick tips to make sure that you are not becoming afflicted: First, it is important to make sure you are mining the right data! With access to so much, it is easy to get bogged down and confused by all of the material available.
Avoid the “Black Hatters”
We are all familiar with Black Friday and the Mad Hatter, but what about the less popular Black Hatters? Unfortunately, the term "Black Hatter" does not refer to discounted shopping or a whimsical fairy tale character like the others. It carries with it a more negative connotation. Black Hatters are the "change agents," interim executives and outside resources, brought into failing organizations to make quick and dramatic vicissitudes.
Your Budget: Stuffed Like a Thanksgiving Turkey?
The holidays are a time for indulging and even being a bit gluttonous. For many healthcare organizations, the season also marks the start of the fiscal year-end. While it is difficult not to be pre-occupied with the party-planning, dinner menus, present-buying, and the other personal distractions that come with this time of year, hospital leaders need to be diligent and focused on ensuring that their organizations are poised to successfully meet the demands of 2020! The most significant part of this preparation is a well-planned budget.