New and Newsworthy

Debra Parsons, MD, FACP

Q: What happened when you empowered your own teams?

A: It was phenomenal - they self-organized and we grew, increased capacity, and came up with safer, smarter processes.

Q: Why are strong leaders just not enough?

A: Leaders can’t effect change without the right culture in place. Solid leadership is critical but ineffectual if your not working as a team. To get the best end result we have to leverage our collective community intelligence.

Larry McEvoy, MD, FACEP

Q: As an ER physician and the CEO of a large health care organization, what are some of the tangible benefits of embedding a Cultural Operating System into your organization?

A: First, there’s a decrease in unnecessary PI spending, a maximization of resources, and a reduction in time wasted on escalating problems rather than solving them. Remarkably, the community drives the changes. Work is getting done more easily and people are seeing what things they’d like to get accomplished and initiating changes themselves.

Q: Why doesn’t a “Command and Control” approach to running your organization work?

A: Our work in healthcare is so complex, so ever-changing and it can be so chaotic that you literally can’t improve quality with a command and control approach. To evolve, our organizations must be self-organizing.

Brian D. Wong, MD MPH

Q: You speak of “Relational Answers.” Healthcare organizations are businesses...don’t they need operational solutions?

A: Standard initiatives and processes are launched and run by people. When we learn how to reform ourselves and how we interact with each other, we’ll build a relational foundation that can then drive operational results. Our process actually teaches key business essentials that guide the process, including learning how to diagnose problems at their root cause.