Focus on quality
If you’re going to use data to track how well your company is doing in terms of meeting goals and expectations, you need to know what the data is trying to tell you if you are going to keep getting better.
“That sounds more simple than it is,” Stewart says. “When cardiovascular clinical databases first started coming into existence back in the ’90s, when a physician sees their data for the first time, there are always two arguments that you have to go through. One is that the data is flawed and the second is, ‘My patients are sicker.’”
The key is to not focus on the data but on what it is you want to accomplish. In the case of St.Vincent Heart Center, the goal is to provide quality service.
“If you focus on quality, you inherently are going to be more efficient because you’re going to make less mistakes and your patient throughput is going to be shorter. By focusing on quality and putting the focus on that and what’s right for the patient first, inherently you will see a better and stronger financial performance.”
That doesn’t mean data should be ignored. But if you’re going to share it with your people, you need to do it in such a way that everyone understands what it means.
“You have to synthesize it down to what are the most critical and important items that we need to communicate,” Stewart says.
Break the data down into smaller groups so that it’s targeted to groups and numbers that the employees would care most about. Use all the standard forms of communication, but don’t forget about the spoken word.
“It’s a responsibility of all of leadership to walk around and verbally communicate, even in much smaller groups, as to what the important issues are,” Stewart says. “It can’t be just top down. It has to be a network that you have to have other individuals and multiple layers of management.”
One of the challenges in working through areas that need improvement is the reluctance to confrontation that can occur.
“People go into health care, more often than not, out of a personal sense of mission of wanting to provide care to others,” Stewart says. “Individuals of that personality type, it’s very hard for them to confront another. The only way you can do it is to start from an educational standpoint. Start using opportunities and almost create, for the lack of a better term, constructive abrasiveness.”
It’s through this kind of dialogue that you build trust.
“Every time you run into a barrier or an area of conflict, it gives you an opportunity to work through it and by working through it, you start to gain trust,” Stewart says. “You have to have some patience and allow time for the trust to develop.”
Stewart is pleased with the efforts of his team thus far, but he always sees room for more improvement.
“It takes a lot of hard work and effort,” Stewart says. “You have to make sure you have the right leadership in place. You have to make sure you’re developing your leadership and your team members to prepare them for what’s coming. It takes all hands on deck to make it happen.”
How to reach: St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana, (317) 338-2345 or www.theheartcenter.com