Category Archives for Healthcare Innovation

Happiness: The path to better hospital performance

A paper published by Alex Edmans of the University of Pennsylvania in the Academy of Management Perspectives; vol. 26 no. 4, titled “Why Happy Workers Should Make Shareholders Smile” the author describes how job satisfaction pays off with better-than-expected earnings and higher stock returns.

So, I was wondering — it has worked in other industries, why not in healthcare?

Cultivating a happy workforce results in more than just feel-good meetings and upbeat corporate retreats. According to this paper, satisfied employees actually raise the worth of their firms. Analyzing the performance of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” over a 28-year period, the author found that these firms generated higher yearly stock returns than comparable companies not on the list. They also systematically beat financial analysts’ earnings estimates, an indication that job satisfaction is an important variable.

Too often in hospitals and healthcare organizations, personal job satisfaction is not considered an important data point to providing higher quality of care, improving patient outcomes or reducing medical costs. Instead, more work is heaped on already over-burdened staff and they are told, “…do more, with less.”

All to often it is the patient who pays the price of the shrinking amount of time that nurses and doctors have to spend per patient. What is most unfortunate is when the systems that were developed to make their jobs easier, actually increase the burden — without providing any discernable benefit.

In the past these home-grown systems were all a Risk, Quality Manager had to choose from. But thankfully there are now better solutions that can not only provide better results, but also make their job easier — dare I say, happier?

It should be no surprise that a happier worker is a more engaged and effective worker. So, if you don’t have happy thoughts when you think about your current Risk/Quality Management, Performance Improvement system, then you should consider why.

Be happy. Get ActionCue Clinical Intelligence.

Read the full article here.

To learn more about the ActionCue hospital risk management software click here.

Happy hospitals make happy patients

“Imagine a hospital where morale is high, employee turnover is low and patient call buttons rarely go unanswered. That’s exactly the type of culture and service that ‘delights’ patients and makes for the most successful community hospitals in the country, as rated by caregivers and patients.” says John Griffith, professor in the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

In a newly published report, Griffith examined the attributes of 34 community hospitals in nine states that have earned the Health Care Sector Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, a nationally recognized quality benchmark for various industries. Griffith’s findings suggest that the single-biggest factor in patient satisfaction is hospital employee morale, which starts with outside-the-box thinking at the very top management levels.

According to the study, “These community hospitals had the happiest patients and caregivers, but only because these hospitals departed radically from traditional hospital management.”

We at Prista also firmly believe it often takes a new approach to a problem to find a better answer. One key area in hospital management that we feel could use an overhaul for the majority of organizations is in the Risk, Quality Management and Performance Improvement programs.

For too many, home-grown or ad hoc solutions have been what staff had to use to manage their performance initiatives. Most of these are done with very laborious and time-consuming paper or excel spreadsheets. Very few provide any real insightful or actionable information — only data points. Even more still lack crucial feedback to front-line staff to let them know what the outcome of a negative incident was.

If you are reading this I’m sure you are relating, possibly cringing, at the system I have been describing. A little too close to home? It is programs like this that add to the frustration of being a healthcare worker. Already asked to wear many hats, you are tasked with following a system that seems to have no discernible purpose beyond collecting data.

So, if you don’t have happy thoughts when you think about your current Risk/Quality Management, Performance Improvement system, then you should consider why.

Be happy. Get ActionCue Clinical Intelligence.

Read the full article here.

To learn more about the ActionCue hospital risk management software click here.

Our Top-4 Ways to be happier at work

Better hospital care linked to happy staff

A study of staff perceptions of quality of care at the National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England suggest a possible link between higher healthcare staff job satisfaction and better quality of care and patient outcomes.

Published in 2012, and revised in 2013, the study points to evidence that increased workplace and job satisfaction in specific settings is linked to lower mortality rates and increased positive patient outcomes.

The study’s aims were to “…assess the potential of staff satisfaction to be used as an indicator of institutional performance”. Over 60,000 respondents from 147 NHS trusts were included in the analysis.

It may not be surprising to hear that a happier nurse or doctor can provide better patient outcomes. In most professions it would be intuitive to find that a person who is happy in their job is going to be more focused and attentive to the task they are performing. Healthcare should be no exception.

The study did not identify what factors contributed to a happier work environment. So, we thought we would make up our own based on customer feedback and our own personal experience:

• Focus on what you love to do — Clinical staff want to spend more time with patients. DQM’s and RM’s want to be educating and consulting. Neither want to be wasting their time with antiquated systems that don’t contribute to better patient care. If a system or process is making your job harder, and not easier, it is likely time for a new one.

• Be social and communicate — One of the most effective ways to improve workplace happiness (and the subject of an upcoming post) is communication and collaboration with coworkers. Team-building exercises and retreats are fine and well. But, nothing can take the place a real, collaborative workplace. More often than not, that begins with simply talking.

• Know the results of your hard work — From far too many of our clients we hear, “With our old risk/quality systems we never knew the outcome of an incident. We would fill out the reports, submit them, and that was it… I don’t even know where they went.” How demoralizing is it to work your hardest and not know if the energy was worth the effort? If you do not know the outcomes of your hard work, you might want to find out how to change that.

• Work smart, not hard — Throughout history humans have used their intelligence to develop tools to make their jobs easier. However, no matter how advanced a technology is, it has a lifespan. Before long a newer, better way to do the same task is developed. Don’t be guilty of saying “we’ve always done it this way”. More advanced tools save time and money.

We built the ActionCue application for that strict purpose, to make your job easier, improve the quality of care, reduce healthcare costs and, ultimately, to improve patient outcomes.

Don’t just take our word for it though. We have a whole list of subscribers that credit the ActionCue application for their success. Visit our testimonials page and read from just a few of them. With a 100% subscriber retention since 2009, we must be doing something right.

Click here to read the study abstract.

To learn how the ActionCue hospital risk management software click here can make your hospital a ‘happier’ place, click the link above.

Can Mickey Mouse Make Your Hospital Better?

Many hospitals are banking on better guest services to improve their healthcare

Barton Memorial Hospital in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., sent its 900 employees back to school in June to learn how to provide better service.

There’s no doubt, Disney does good customer service. If you haven’t been to the Magic Kingdom before let me describe it for you. From the moment you enter the parking lot you are immersed in a very choreographed experienced. Every detail of the sights and sounds, even smells, that greet you are very deliberate, the length of time you spend waiting in lines all refined to enhance your visit and reduce stress. Why? Well, that is a bit more complex. To boil it down to its simplest, it’s so you have a great time.

Well, this is obvious for an amusement park. Of course you should have a good time. How does this apply to healthcare? Ah ha! Now you’re asking the right questions.

Satisfaction is not the only reason that Disney, and other industries, spend a great deal of time and money to refine and develop pleasurable guest experiences. Cost and return business is a prime factor. Smooth, stress-free lines are beneficial to both hospitals and patients alike — they save time and money. This is just one aspect of their organization that many hospitals have approached Disney for help with.

Happiness may not be the only reason, but we find it’s a big one in healthcare — to patients and staff alike.

It may sound silly to say that a risk or quality management system can literally bring joy to your job. But, only if you haven’t experienced what a platform like ActionCue Clinical Intelligence can do. We may not be Disney, but is certainly raising the spirits of many Risk/Quality Managers just like you by making their jobs a whole lot easier.

So if you don’t smile just a little bit when you think about your current Risk/Quality Management, Performance Improvement system then you need to consider why.

Read the full article here.

Be happy, try ActionCue Clinical Intelligence.

Happy patients could mean more money for hospitals.

Pay-for-performance has become popular among policy makers and private and public payers.

Hospitals could be given more money from the Government if patients are happy with their care, under Pay-for-performance initiatives.

“Pay-for-performance” is an umbrella term for financial incentives to hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers who focus on the general happiness of their patients. Which are aimed at improving the quality, efficiency, and overall value of health care

The Affordable Care Act includes a number of provisions which are designed to encourage quality of care. The best known programs under the law that would be considered pay-for-performance are Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), groups of providers that agree to be held accountable for the quality and cost of services they provide.Pay-for-performance arose in the early 2000s as concerns about potentially compromised quality and constraints on patients having access to providers of their choice grew from both providers and consumers.

 Also, serious deficiencies in the quality of US health care had been highlighted in two major reports by the Institute of Medicine, among other studies. Pay-for-performance, it was thought, was a way for payers to focus on quality with the expectation that doing so would also reduce costs.

Some have concerns that the pay-for-performance model will have negative results, and a few studies have showed mixed or short-lived results in performance scores.

While results are still mixed, a recent study did show positive effects of incentivizing based upon performance within small HER-enabled clinics.

For more reading on the issue take a look at the study abstract here.

To learn more about the ActionCue hospital risk management software click here.