Clintcast

Human history is loaded with examples of situations where specialization, even for all the progress it often brings, has lead down a dead end when the playing field changed. While specialization is great and definitely needed in many ways, it is critical for us to also pair this specialization with flexibility so as to overcome those inevitable changes to the big picture that so often make some of those specializations obsolete (or at least minimized). Today, Clint advises that we be sure to take a look at ways in which we specialize (personal skills, organizational niche, etc) as well as to employ the needed flexibility to keep our teaming efforts effective and to prepare for eventual market/customer changes.

Regardless of the most current healthcare reform effort, a trend that has been up and coming with the government regarding the reimbursement process, thanks to extensive data/history collection, is a closer and more stringent look at payments associated with hospital readmissions. Rates of readmissions have been fairly high, not only incurring extra costs, but also additional ‘discomforts’ to our customers. Rightly so, the government sees this as a large area of opportunity for hospitals and post-acute care providers to partner so as to reduce these costs, as well as the numbers of customers requiring readmission when some (usually) simple and relatively inexpensive interventions could have prevented a second trip to the hospital. Check out these aspects to see if this is a golden opportunity for your organization as well!

Most every workplace has (at least) one - the bad apple who always seems to find what's wrong with things and offers no solutions to improve the situation. If you have been listening to Clintcast for awhile, you recognize this type as the ‘troll’ or BMG (Bellyacher/Moaner/Groaner) from other episodes. While every profession has its mistakes/problems, when they occur in healthcare, they can be more severe as sometimes life/health may be at stake. As such, it is very crucial that we be able to deal with these bad apples as quickly as possible, as one of the typical traits of this type is to poison the other apples around them, promulgating a sphere of doom in their wake. Get some help from Clint on hows/whys of dealing with these bad apples before the whole barrel goes bad!

The position of Director of Nursing is a critical function in any healthcare organization. It is no surprise that the person in this role tends to have a LOT on his/her plate as they cover many bases and must be skilled in some widely varying ways, both in the clinical and the leadership worlds. Clint covers some of these aspects today as he discusses the finer points of being a Director Of Nursing, what makes great ones and tips for being an effective team leader in your organization.

It is a given in healthcare - our customers expect quality, no different than we would in their place. How we achieve that quality has everything to do with how our organization operates. There are lots of ways we go about driving the quality of our ‘products’ in healthcare, including some aspects such as cost savings, efficiencies, labor streamlining, etc which are found in other types of businesses as well. While it may seem obvious that we would never want to deny anyone quality care, there does need to be at least internal knowledge regarding the costs that specific quality levels require to produce. Today, Clint dives into the factors we should be considering as we develop our various price/quality points of our healthcare products/services.

To err is human... it happens. That being said, we of course want to minimize the numbers/types of errors we make, especially in healthcare where someone's life could be on the line. Today, Clint discusses methods for setting up an environment where we can minimize the blame and finger-pointing and instead focus on how to fix situations arising from errors and to better still, try to prevent them happening repetitively again in the future. This additionally helps to nurture an environment in which staff voluntarily want to avail themselves of training/resources to help reduce errors and promote productivity - a win/win!

While time-travel, as depicted in Back To The Future, may still be some ways off, in a sense we all take part in some approximation of time-travel everyday. In fact, it is a very healthy exercise in our organizations to occasionally roll-back the clock to examine aspects in the past (How did we solve that problem? What can we learn from that incident that we can benefit from in the future? etc) as well as to envision how things may come to be in the future (If we had twice as many residents, what would need to change in our processes? What kinds of teams will we need to address anticipated changes in healthcare in 10 years? etc). That said, it is most important to realize that the most critical time-travel is the NOW. After all, the present only stays the present for an instant. Time is traveling under our feet every instant of the day. Therefore, what can we be doing now, given learnings from the past and visions of the future to make the most of RIGHT NOW?

It should hopefully go without saying for those in the healthcare profession... healthcare is cool! For the youth of today though, it is becoming increasingly harder (especially given the various competing job markets) to have this realized in their career planning years so as to be preparing the next wave of young talent to carry on the coolness of healthcare. How can we be doing things now to help put in place the incentives, knowledge, ‘PR’ and such to help steer the up and coming talent in the direction of healthcare tomorrow? Clint has some ideas!

For those of you who are Superman fans, you no doubt know about how Clark Kent (Superman’s public identity at the Daily Planet) was able to function within society, seemingly due to nothing more elaborate than a suit and a pair of glasses. When in this disguise, those around him had no clue as to the tremendous strength, superpowers or just all out goodwill this person truly had underneath. It can often be no different in our healthcare organizations. As staff are placed into SuperTeams, it is often a surprise to fellow workmates just what lies under the ‘glasses’ of those they have worked with, often for years, without noticing these talents and traits. Listen in as Clint reminds us to be sure to look beyond the glasses when we enlist the aid of our staff members in the cause of a great project!

In the people business, there will be times when customers/coworkers/partners/etc will voice their dissatisfaction with how they perceive a situation to be. The manner in which they voice that complaint will vary. Sometimes it may be calm and to the point. Often, it may be shrouded in emotion and include a lot of additional commentary that may or may not be related to the issue at hand. The trick to help get these situations from a ‘problem’ orientation to a ‘solution’ orientation (hopefully, there is a P=S (Don't discuss problems without proposing a solution) policy in place) is learning how to hear when there is a proposed solution that is workable embedded in the complaint. Today, Clint offers some ideas on how to deal with these complaints which will often come packaged in ways you would not prefer, but must be dealt with nonetheless.

‘Teaming makes it easier’ is a concept that applies not only to the Care Crowd individuals, but also to organizations as a whole as well. Integration and partnerships are increasingly going to be the norm in healthcare for the foreseeable future as we move into an era where cost-savings, care-consistency, reporting/metrics/etc all become more and more standardized and driven to reward organizations that work together to ultimately drive customer-satisfaction and results. Those left standing on their own with no/few ties to other areas of customer-success will increasingly find their islands become smaller and smaller. Get some tips on how to ensure your organization is ready to ride the coming wave of healthcare!

The first and foremost key to success in healthcare is the realization that it is, after all, a ‘people’ business. As such, if you are not the sort of person that has strong connections to people and strong customer-service orientation, then perhaps healthcare is not the right area for you. Along with this ‘people’ orientation, one needs to be solution-oriented, as the process of being ‘people-oriented’ (especially when constantly providing individualized care) rarely results in a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach. The ability to solve unique problems on-the-fly is critical. These two facets/orientations go hand in hand. Finally, to truly bring ultimate success/effectiveness to you and your customers in healthcare, a ‘team’ orientation is also required. While it is fine if you have the first two aspects on your own, when you can combine your drive and skills with others, the combined/synergized efforts far outpace the individual efforts on their own. Let’s all strive to pursue these three driving factors of success in healthcare!

Bad days happen to everyone at some point. Sometimes, life just throws you a pitch you never saw coming and it catches you off guard. These can't be helped. By contrast, when you are ‘anticipating’ and ‘planning’ on a bad day to come, there are different dynamics in play, many of which can be dealt with. When one ‘plans’ on the upcoming day to be ‘a bad one’, chances are more than likely their self-fulfilling prophecy will come true, not only for themselves, but others around them who fall into their sphere of doom. Clint shares some thoughts on why we must guard against these little black cloud moments.

The key to ongoing success in healthcare, now and especially in the future, is the ability to deliver customized customer-centric service. While having some organizational ‘boilerplate’ policies/structure in place for general guidance is fine as a starting point, in order to truly institute ‘culture change’, we must rise to the next level and develop the flexibility to enable the adaptation of these baseline structures into customizable products/processes that can be molded to each individual’s needs while still being tied to successful revenue generation. Check out Clint’s ideas on ways to make this happen in your organization.

Way back in Episode #6 of the Clintcast archives, you'll find a story entitled ‘The Ham Sandwich’ which discusses a CEO’s realization that his organization was becoming unable to empower individuals to solve problems at the levels closest to them, resulting in flush-ups of problems all the way to the top. In this revisit to that episode, Clint comments on his recent chat with that same CEO and the push that has been made since that incident to learn how to provide customer-centric service and to improve the organization’s abilities to be flexible and service-oriented by being able to resolve issues at the lowest levels possible through empowerment. Listen in!

In the healthcare profession, it goes without saying that our customers generally would be prefer NOT to be our (or anyone's, for that matter) customers. Some handle this better than others. There is an occasional customer that, for lack of a better term, is a nightmare. Nothing anyone says or does seems to bring satisfaction to this person. How should we deal with these unique cases? Check out Clint's suggestions for handling these folks, and better still, documenting a case study in these instances, so we and others in the future can learn from these tough lessons to better hone our customer service skills for other customers.

When you go to your routine physical at the doctor, he/she will likely gather some data about your current condition (pulse, height, weight, etc) in order to be able to both continue a baseline history of your continual health picture as well as to get the current ‘buzz’ about your short-term health snapshot. Using these tools, he/she can then better decide appropriate courses of action for any change implementation needed in your health practices (diet, exercise, medications, etc). It is similar with our team-building practices for managers. Clint offers some thoughts to consider regarding the practice of uncovering ‘the buzz’ in your organization to better help implement necessary changes in your business environment.

If you are a leader/manager, chances are you have heard the phrase ‘got a second’ before as someone pops in front of you with an issue that, in fact, will likely take more than a short second/minute/hour to resolve. What you say in return must be well considered if you are going to be effective in your role (and they in theirs) because there is a dangerous trap there, waiting to suck up your time and resources if not addressed correctly. Get some tips on how to proactively prevent this situation and to reserve these moments for items that are truly more effectiveness/customer-service oriented!

Many who have worked with Clint or have met him in the past likely know that he is a huge fan of horse racing and that it is one of his favorite hobbies outside of healthcare. In lieu of the past weekend's running of the Kentucky Derby, today Clint discusses while he felt strongly, even months ago, that the horse called Super Saver had a very high likelihood of winning this race. In a word, it is teamwork. Like teams in healthcare, when you can put together a team of talented members with clear goals and processes and the ability to be flexible, yet positive and assertive, you have a strong ability to come out a winner in practically any endeavor. Learn how to ensure your team comes up roses!

If you ever played the childhood game ‘telephone’ (also known by many other names), you likely remember how fouled a communication can become as it is passed along/misinterpreted/altered/etc. Unfortunately, real life daily communications often get just as muddled up and the resulting failures to communicate often cost organizations untold dollars and time trying to fix what a little forethought and planning might have prevented. Get some hints from Clint to ensure that you are proactively ‘planning’ each day for muddled communications and ways to head off these failures to communicate.