Contents

Soapbox

Patients Speak

I Love This Resource

Quoteworthy

Cage-Rattling Q’s

September Webinar

Wendy Leebov’s

September 2013 Volume 5, Issue 8

On The Quality Patient Experience

www.quality-patient-experience.com

HeartBeat

©2013; Leebov Golde Group. www.quality-patient-experience.com

Wendy’s Soapbox ‘Sighting’ Your Way to Your Future Patient Experience Strategy A few days ago, a client asked me to suggest a long-term plan for building upon and extending the gains achieved in their patient experience strategies to date. Admittedly, when asked such a question in the past, I have given concrete ad-vice about the goals and strategy options that ensure contin-uous improvement and eliminate the “flash-in-the-pan” feel-ing that has weakened many a strategy.

This time, I found myself talking instead about how to tap into the wisdom that lives in the organization -- in the hearts and minds of leaders, everyone on the staff and also patients and families. I said, if you can tap into the wisdom that is there in your organization now, you will be able to craft a far-reaching and powerful plan that builds on your strengths and really meets your particular needs.

Four Perspectives That Reveal the Existing Wisdom

I suggested taking action to explore four perspectives that will reveal the existing wisdom, so you can develop a great plan.

Perspective 1: Hindsight

Hindsight is defined as recognition of the realities and results of a situation, event, or decision after it has occurred. People say “Hindsight is 20-20”, meaning that situ-ations and results often seem obvious when you look back on them, but they sure weren’t obvious when you were planning for them. This kind of hindsight leads people to say, “I knew this would happen,” and it can drive us crazy when people say this as they look back.

But there’s a different and more helpful kind of hindsight. I’m talking about revisit-ing events, actions, decisions and results in the past and taking the time to reflect on them and learn from them. Most of us are moving too fast and are so busy that we

Four Perspectives That Reveal the Existing Wisdom

1. Hindsight

2. Insight

3. Outsight

4. Foresight

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©2013; Leebov Golde Group; www.quality-patient-experience.com

‘Sighting’ Your Way to Your Future Patient Experience Strategy (continued)

don’t stop to do this kind of reflection. The result: We don’t learn what we could have from past efforts and we move forward to make choices about the future without the benefit of learning from hindsight. Don’t you often glance into your rearview mirror to see what’s happening behind you? You don’t dwell on what’s behind you, but you certainly adjust your driving based on what you see.

Perspective 2: Insight

Insight involves an immediate understanding of an aspect of yourself, others, events, challenges, decisions you’ve made and their results with non-judgmental clarity. It often happens suddenly. A realization pops into your head. Or, it might occur in a group discussion when you reflect or hear others expound on a topic of mu-tual interest. An “aha” is an insight.

While some insights pop into our heads, we can be sure to gain insight by self-reflection and by sharing and chewing on views and perceptions with others in a nonjudgmental environment.

Perspective 3: Outsight

Yep. That’s a real word that’s rarely used. It involves seeing beyond our usual (self-limiting) frame of refer-ence (seeing out further than we’ve seen before), inviting and nonjudgmentally considering perspectives dif-ferent from our own.

Solitary thinking doesn’t often give us new perspectives or ideas. With outsight, instead of asking yourself and the usual suspects like your partner or friend, we seek an outside opinion. With outsight, we come to un-derstand others better. We see things we were not seeing that can inform our decisions and plans. We open to possibilities we didn’t think of. And we often achieve insights as a result.

I think developing outsight requires deliberate focus ---looking outward--- taking in what you see and hear. It also requires taking initiative to convene people with diverse perspectives and listen to them. It starts with curiosity and humility.

Perspective 4: Foresight

And finally, there’s foresight. Foresight is the act or the power of foreseeing, of looking forward, anticipat-ing events, obstacles and opportunities before they have occurred.

You can't know with certainly, but, drawing on hindsight, outsight and insight, you can make your best guess and act on that, so you won't be paralyzed by future conditions that you can’t control.

A Few Suggestions

How can you tap into all of this wisdom to generate a powerful and far-reaching plan?

Page 2

The Four Perspectives

Suggestions

Hindsight

Don’t rush onward! Stop and debrief! Take the time to process what’s been done in the past. Convene people with experience with and perspectives on past efforts. What happened? What did people learn? What do people see as the implications for future initiatives?

Emphasize the positives! Take a lesson from “Appreciative Inquiry” and affirm past and present strengths, achievements and assets (not just “problems”), so you can build your future plans on a solid founda-tion of strength. Every organization has something that works right—forces that give life when it most alive, effective, successful, and con-nected in healthy ways to its stakeholders and communities. This will help you have energy and vision as you plan forward.

©2013; Leebov Golde Group; www.quality-patient-experience.com

‘Sighting’ Your Way to Your Future Patient Experience Strategy (continued)

Then What?

Dream and design. Draw on the positive stories, hindsight, insight and outsight to develop strategy options for the future. Use outsight again. Present your ideas or proposed plans to people representing multiple per-spectives. Fine-tune based on their wisdom. Reflect and ensure that your plans are grounded in your discov-eries from hindsight, outsight, insight and foresight. I know you know to beware of prescriptions, recipes and expert advice that say, “Here’s what you should do. Here’s what your plan should contain.” I’m convinced that the best-laid, most fruitful and effective plans are those that emerge from tuning in to the internal wisdom in the organization.

Page 3

The Four Perspectives

Suggestions (cont.)

Insight

Schedule reflection into your busy life. Hold a weekly “Reflection Committee Meeting”—a recurring meeting in your calendar when you sit or walk -- and think --- and develop insights about actions taken, your strategy, and your leadership role. Protect this time. Give it the weight of an important meeting.

Trust your gut. Did you ever watch Columbo? He solved crimes by trusting his gut. Insights often come from our intuition, not our rational mind. Listen to this.

Create a safe container for group discussion. Set meeting times in which you share opinions and reflections with others (like your steering team) with groundrules that make it safe to say anything and everything without fearing judgment, criticism, or argument. Inevitably such discussions lead to individual and group insights.

Emphasize the positive. Invite information and stories about what is working well and why, so you can gain insights about the positive core that you can build on when you make future plans.

Outsight

Ask questions, search and discover. Consult others, whether through study, reading, focus groups, interviews---every which way.

Invite feedback. People have blindspots. We don’t see what others see. When we know what others see, it can help us gain insights. Invite feedback about your-self, your strategies, your team, the positives, the frustrations—everything. You can choose to act on what you learn or not. So, listen with an open mind and don’t even feel like you must respond. Just thank people for sharing their views and promise to consider them seriously.

Create a mastermind team (people with diverse perspectives). Invite sharing about yesterday, today and tomorrow, and discuss what you might do to take max-imum advantage of any potential opportunities.

Learn from LOADS of people. Consider large group or community meetings, sum-mits that include representatives of all stakeholder groups who share their views and look for patterns while all in the same room. There are terrific “large group designs” for structuring a fabulous summit experience (even with hundreds of people at a time) that will engage masses of people and propel your plans forward.

Foresight

Anticipate. Share best guesses about the future. Invite diverse perspectives here too.

Agree on driving principles. Engage your planning team in identifying the short list of likely factors in the future that your plans should assume. And as you plan, check back to ensure that your plans address this short list of assumptions.

Your greatest investment in improving the patient and fami-ly experience is your employees. To reap the greatest ben-efit, your organization needs to effectively engage employ-ees in ways that mobilize, energize, and nurture their tal-ents, commitment and contribution.

Webinar addresses: Aligning mission, vision, values, goals, behaviors and conversations, building an infrastruc-ture that supports doing great work, creating a culture that is driven by your guiding principles, providing leadership that models the way, and identifying and developing talent.

Highlights include:

The top drivers of employee engagement

Tips to proactively engage employees in a time of rapid change

How to use a talent management approach as part of your comprehensive strategy

Recommendations on how to engage multiple genera-tions of employees in the workforce

Concrete engagement strategies with direct positive impact on the patient and family experience

Who   S h o u l d  A t t e n d  

Pa ent experience leaders, nurse execu ves and the en re nursing management team

Human resources leaders, training and or‐ganiza on development professionals

Your en re management team

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

1-2 pm (EDT)

Webinar Faculty 

Dorothy Sisneros, MS, MBA is Part‐

ner and Senior Vice President, Client

Experience for Leebov Golde Group.

A seasoned executive coach, facilita‐

tor, trainer, and strategic partner,

she has extensive experience as a

consultant/partner in healthcare,

service excellence, leadership, stra‐

tegic planning, talent management and organizational

dynamics. Dorothy has served in a variety of leadership

roles and been at the forefront of several national Service

Excellence initiatives.

UPCOMING WEBINARS

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Hard Conversa ons: Key Skills to Win the Coopera on of Pa ents, Families and Coworkers

Carla Rotering, MD, MA Tuesday, November 26, 2013

How to Align Recogni on Prac ces with Your Pursuit of the Great Pa ent Experience

Wendy Leebov, Dorothy Sisneros and Jill Golde; Partners, Leebov Golde Group

Register Now

Individual = $49 

Group (per call‐in line) = $199 

Space is limited.

Register Now! (If your system wants to purchase

several call‐in lines, contact us.)

Leebov Golde Group Webinar Series Presents...

Improving HCAHPS Through Employee Engagement

I Love This Resource

Page 5 ©2013; Leebov Golde Group; www.quality-patient-experience.com

Wendy Leebov’s HeartBeat on the Quality Patient Experience www.quality-patient-experience.com

Quoteworthy “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

—Dr. Seuss

Patients Speak

...about ANXIETY

“YOU are used to hospitals. I’m not! I’m not in my element and it makes me very nervous.”

“When I’m in the dark about why people are doing what they’re doing, I feel so powerless.”

“You say I’m in good hands and shouldn’t be anxious. Are you kidding? I don’t know if I have a future! Don’t tell ME I shouldn’t be anxious.”

“Usually, I take things in stride. But not when it comes to my health!”

“Can you give me something for my nerves? I’m a wreck.”

Ask Your Team These Cage-Rattling Questions (Fits easily into a staff meeting)

It’s a fact. When patients are engaged in their health care, safety and quality improve. To promote stronger engagement, The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) developed a guide to help patients, families, and health professionals work together as partners to promote improvements in care.

The Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety describes four strategies for pro-moting patient/family engagement in hospital safety and quality of care.

FREE at http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/systems/hospital/engagingfamilies/index.html

Help your team identify positive experiences during which they felt connected to another at work in a gratify-ing way. Ask them to share the circumstances and reflect on how they can create moments like that at work every day.

Instructions: Think of a time when you connected with someone at work (a patient, family member, coworker, volunteer or other) and the person moved from stranger to friend even if for only a few moments.

Share the details with a partner: What happened? How did you connect? How did this feel? How can you make this happen more often at work?

Wendy Leebov’s HeartBeat on the Quality Patient Experience www.quality-patient-experience.com

Page 6

THANK YOU FOR TUNING IN!

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Join our LinkedIn Group called "Quality Patient Experience and HCAHPS Improvement" and add to the dis-cussions about the quality patient experience. AND please send me an INVITE so you and I can connect.

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Contact Us 215-413-1969

wleebov@ quality-patient-experience.com

Partnering with healthcare organizations to create and sustain healing experiences and positive outcomes through powerfully effective, caring communication.

©2013; Leebov Golde Group; www.quality-patient-experience.com

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