Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Trustee Article and trust issues

In a recent Trustee magazine, there is a very good article on the hospital-physician relationship. [Trustee: the magazine for health care governance]

The article compares this relationship to a marriage, just as I did in a post months ago. It also stresses the importance of trust between administration and physicians, just as I did months ago. (See postings from February 1, and February 3, 2006)

Some notable quotes from the article are:

This ties into what Kaufman describes as the need for “radically open communication” with physicians. “Physicians always assume first that hospitals want to control them … that they [hospitals] are a business that doesn’t care about physicians,” he explains. By “overcommunicating” what the hospital is doing and why, repetitively and through multiple avenues—from newsletters to one-on-one conversations—the rapid changes hospital leadership are being forced to make have a better chance of being understood, he believes.

“And, once you are caught in a half truth, that’s it. Their trust in you is your credibility.”

“You have to ask for input from physicians ahead of making a decision and then communicate with them during [the process] and afterward,”

Kaufman adds that hospital leadership “should always invite dissent—a lot of good projects have developed because physicians pushed the hospital when it didn’t want to do something.” He says that the board should know what those dissenting opinions are and what those who disagree are saying.

“Ego doesn’t require us to control [our physicians],” Bjelich says. “How do we both succeed? Without trust, you don’t have a relationship, you have a contract … we don’t need to review our contract. If we do, our marriage is in trouble.”

These are the same things I voiced to the administration and the Board as a Board member and the things I continue to voice now.

In my opinion, if the rest of the Board cannot begin to understand the impact of this trust and relationship issue and make the needed changes, our hospital will continue to succumb to the poor decisions that are characterized by the current leadership.

How many more opportunities need to be lost before they understand our current leadership is costing more than they are benefiting the hospital.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot-wheel and said, What a dust do I raise!"

8/16/2006 11:09:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am not ready to give up yet. I still have too many friends who work at Floyd and have no voice.

I cannot stand to allow the injustice in the way they treat employees, physicians and others to go without being noted.

I plan to quit when we get a leadership change.

8/17/2006 08:49:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So, I guess we can look forward to more pronouncements from the compound of the Branch Eichenbergers.

8/17/2006 09:48:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.

8/17/2006 02:38:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bravo Dr. E.! Why are the people of New Albany so willing to tolerate the mediocrity that is FMH? There are other facilities (albeit in Louisville) that provide outstanding service -- why not put your life in their hands instead? After some scary experiences at Floyd, I would travel willingly to receive a higher level of care than what is currently available there.

In this day and age of customer awareness, when working to retain the customer is thought to be far more cost effective than marketing to get new customers, FMH has a staff that is out of step. Customer service has very little to do with the functions of meeting and greeting. Real customer service has everything to do with empathy, attitude and actual service. Real customer service plays an enormous role in the customer’s decision to return to a facility, or to seek care elsewhere.

There is a tendency for people who work in an organization to get used to, and tired of the status quo. FMH employees consistently show that they have accepted those tendencies as the norm. It is true that they move patients through the system efficiently – it is obvious that it has been made a priority for them. As a publicly funded entity, they must continually work with the poor, the elderly, the perennially unhealthy, and it must wear on them ... but they musn’t say, “Oh God, here’s another one.”

After encountering this attitude in many departments there, I would not currently allow myself to be admitted, tested or treated there. I am grateful that I now have a way to follow their progress (or decline) without putting myself at their (lack of) mercy again.

8/21/2006 08:43:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home