Through our work with hundreds of healthcare facilities and direct observation and research of high-performing organizations, Baptist Leadership Group (BLG) has identified an integrated structure of five essential areas organizations should focus on to achieve and sustain desired outcomes, The Keys to Performance Excellence.  The Keys to Performance Excellence can help an organization unlock the door to organizational excellence through execution.  The keys consist of:

The essential first key BLG recommends be implemented is to Hardwire Success through Systems of Accountability for the achievement of desired outcomes.  The most effective way of Hardwiring Systems of Accountability, to create a culture of achievement and execution, is through the adoption of a leader performance evaluation system. Leader performance evaluation systems are designed to focus on outcomes and not processes, which is essential to creating an organization of owners.  Many organizations have evaluation systems in place that allow leaders who do not meet defined goals, to receive good evaluations in their organization.  This process does not and will not establish long-term success in any organization.

 

When an organization’s leadership team and employees become owners and are aware of who is responsible for achieving results, they are more motivated to reach and exceed goals.  At BLG, we define two kinds of accountability that are essential to the creation of a leader performance system that drives outcomes; The Whats and The Hows.

 

The Whats are defined as the objective, individual measurable outcome metrics aligned with the annual goals of the organization.  The Hows are defined as the personal, day-to-day observable behaviors essential to achieve the goals of the organization.  The objective is to provide you with guidelines for developing and writing effective goals (Whats) and establishing clearly defined behaviors (Hows) to create clarity of expectations with a focus on outcomes that are managed across the organization with similar consistency and predetermined consequences.

 

 

Every healthcare organization has strategies, goals, and values, and they are all pretty good.  This is not the issue.  The number one opportunity is not developing goals and values, but rather using them to create and sustain organizational excellence.  If an organization desires to be successful for their patients, employees, physicians, and community, it must first narrow the focus of the organization each year with a balanced approach (Baptist's Pillars - People, Service, Quality, Finance, and Growth)  on 10 - 12 outcome-based organizational results, have zero-tolerance for noncompliance and poor performance (outcomes and behaviors), and establish predetermined consequences, both positive and negative, for all key success factors of the organization.

 

Once an organization commits to moving away from a culture of effort and creating a culture of outcomes, each leader needs to establish 4 - 8 goals that are consistent with the mission, vision, values, and objectives of the organization and are carried out through every day decisions, behaviors, and actions.

 

Use the below ten questions to evaluate your current leader performance evaluation system and determine if the systems of accountability you have in place will be helpful in achieving and sustaining the organization’s operational outcomes across all strategic priorities.

 

 

Our research indicates that high performing organizations, those that have clearly defined aggressive organizational goals that consistently meet or exceed them, typically answer yes to all the above questions.  Leaders who answer yes to 8 to 9 questions typically reflect organizations with clearly defined aggressive organizational goals that consistently meet or exceed 50 - 75 percent of the goals.  Those organizations who typically answer yes to 7 or less reflect organizations who achieve 50 - 75 percent of the relatively modest goals set.

 

BLG would be pleased to assist you with the creation, integration, and execution of a formal leader performance management system in your organization based on clearly-defined objective, measurable goals, as well as observable behaviors aligned to your critical success factors.

 

If you would like to learn more about accountability and productivity management or the automated solution, Leader Performance System™, to efficiently and effectively implement this balanced approach to performance management within your organization, please contact Joseph McCrory at 850.377.1862 or josephm@bhclg.com.

 

 

One of they key tactics that healthcare leaders and staff utilize is rounding.  While we all agree that rounding is not a new concept, and has been used effectively for years to meet the needs of the patient, what we have begun to understand is that rounding is critical to delivering patient centered care and driving quality outcomes.

 

Why is this important? High patient-satisfaction scores, which are now openly available to the market, are a key driver of the perception of quality and customer service for hospitals.  Empowered healthcare consumers, and often their physicians, are accessing this data to make care decisions.  Think about how many employees drive performance on HCAHPS (the only national survey measuring patient perceptions). In high-performing hospitals, the employees’ ability to impact the patient experience, quality outcomes and the bottom line are publicly acknowledged highlights.

 

Rounding helps the leader to be proactive by assessing needs and levels of service, and then an action plan can be developed to change results.  Rounding observations are taken back to individual departments and result in reward and recognition of staff as well as actionable steps to improve service to staff and patients.   Rounding also provides a great opportunity for the leaders in these departments to harvest the “wins.”

 

 

Discharge phone calls are a quality-related tactic that, when executed consistently and effectively, provide a direct impact on outcomes and patient satisfaction.  Every patient must receive a discharge phone call within 24 to 48 hours of leaving the hospital.  This phone call provides two very important benefits.

 

First, it gives us the ability to assess the patient’s progress, their compliance with clinical instructions, and allows us to monitor potential warning signs. In most cases the calls help trigger early intervention, reduce adverse effects, and prevent unnecessary readmission into the hospital. In the case of uncompensated care, while the goal is clinical quality, the impact on the bottom line is direct.

 

Second, the phone call gives caregivers and their leaders a vehicle to learn about and understand each patient’s hospital experience.  Most patients are more likely to give honest feedback and share negative experiences after they have left the hospital.  Negative experiences can be shared with the appropriate service recovery tactics administered within the 24 to 48 hour window of discharge.  Then, experiences can then be documented and shared with staff and leaders to develop action plans to improve service excellence, which has direct connectivity to patient satisfaction and profitability.

 

 

Baptist Leadership Group (BLG) is a professional services firm owned by Baptist Health Care, that is dedicated to patient-centered excellence.  We have a three-fold mission:

BLG is unique, and different from other firms in several key ways: