About two years ago, Telford W. Thomas was faced with the grimreality of the competitiveness of the health care industry. If The Washington Hospital did not evolve to face the demandsput on it by its customers and the market, it would cease to growand possibly start losing business — and talent — to the competition.
“What is happening in the health care industry is we, like otherinstitutions, have been attacked for patient trust in the organization that has been dropping over the years because of errors thatare made … and not paying attention to what the patient feels theyneed,” says Thomas, president and CEO of the hospital, which had2007 revenue of $225 million.
“We felt in order to stay viable, given we are in a competitiveenvironment with other health care institutions and businesses,that we had to make that change. Our intent certainly is to be thehospital of choice in our community for the patients and the doctors and our employees to work here.”
As a result, Thomas and his team started looking at ways theorganization could reinvent itself to better meet the needs of itscustomers and increase staff accountability. The emphasis wouldbe on getting better feedback from patients to help the hospitalprovide better care.
“We, as health care providers, don’t always know what is best forthe patient,” he says. “We’ve got to involve them in it. The effort to dothat and make the cultural change has to be through our educationand work with our employees to encourage that participation.”
The patients weren’t the only ones who needed more attention. Togenerate excitement about the changes and to get the staff of 2,400to buy in to them, Thomas and the upper management team neededto do a better job of paying attention to employees and giving themthe recognition they were due. Only if the employees were on boardwith the changes could patient care ultimately be improved.
