Pinnacle Awards

Last night, WMHS held its Pinnacle Award Dinner to honor and celebrate our Values in Action Award winners over the past year and to select our Pinnacle Awardee.  All twelve of these individuals are exemplary employees who inspire all of us.  The Committee had a most challenging task in selecting one Pinnacle Award winner out of this particular group of twelve, but they were able to make their selection.  I had the honor of presenting the award to Jennifer Perrin, a Certified Diabetes Educator in the Center of Clinical Resources.  

I previously blogged about Jennifer from my first-hand visit to the Center.  Her accomplishments have been amazing as she is meeting the challenge of health care change in so many ways.  Jennifer has patients who are now living healthier, more satisfying lives thanks to her knowledge and expertise.  She has saved countless lives and has given so many a much improved quality of life.  We have seen amazing results from our Center for Clinical Resources; a direct outcome of the many wonderful people fulfilling the mission of WMHS each day and as so well demonstrated by Jennifer.  Congratulations, Jennifer..........so very well deserved.

How to Judge One's Character

A friend shared a recent Rick Reilly article.  Rick was a long time Sports Illustrated writer who a few years ago went over to the dark side, ESPN.  He now writes for ESPN and continues to do a great job.  Last week's article was written with the pending NFL Draft coming up.  Rick's article was "How to Judge One's Character.” He wrote that this time of the year you hear from NFL general managers, "is he a character guy?”  He writes that GMs do so much to determine if a potential draftee has character and yet all that they need to do is to find out how generously they tip. I have attached the article and it is worth the read.  

I agree with Rick Reilly that this is a great way to judge one's character.  I also judge one's character on how they treat the wait staff in a restaurant.  If they are rude, abrupt, ungrateful or demanding, that says a lot about them and I have not hired individuals, not engaged consultants and even ended friendships as a result of how they treat a server, a host / hostess or a bartender.  I live by the motto, treat people as you would like to be treated; and so far, that has worked for me.

http://m.espn.go.com/nfl/story?storyId=10896190&src=desktop&wjb

Transforming Care Delivery Through High-Risk Clinics

I am attending a meeting in Nashville, TN, and yesterday we had a presentation on transforming health care delivery through high-risk clinics.  Their tag line is "the right care at the right time in the right location."  If you remember, WMHS has been touting "the most appropriate care in the most most appropriate location.”  

A significant aspect of our care transformation has been the Center for Clinical Resources, our high-risk clinic equivalent.  It was reassuring to get affirmation on how well our clinic is doing in comparison with a group that has been doing this for a while.  This company is new to Maryland, but is not new to this care delivery model.  They were touting their client satisfaction, their reduction in admissions and re-admissions, reduction in ED visits, reduction of inpatient costs and their optimal care delivery through this model.  These are all areas that WMHS has been equally successful in achieving.  

As a reminder, our Center for Clinical Resources assists patients with COPD, congestive heart failure, diabetes, anticoagulation medications, medication therapy management, nutrition counseling, navigation and outreach for social needs, and prevention and wellness education.  Our CCR team is doing some remarkable work with these patients and truly making a difference in the lives of these individuals.

Recognition Of Our Nurses

I am truly blessed to have so many nurses in both my personal as well as professional life.  This week is Nurses' Week and whatever the recognition, it is never enough.  These women and men have dedicated their lives to the holistic care of their patients.  They are creative, persistent, active, dynamic, proficient, imaginative, dedicated and caring.   They demonstrate care as the essence of what they do for their patients.  They advocate for every patient, every time.  They balance both the art as well as the science of nursing almost to perfection.  These individuals are truly special and I thank God that there are such dedicated professionals demonstrating that essence of care each day at WMHS.

Business Unfriendly

This morning as I was listening to the radio, I heard Allegany County Commissioner Creade Brodie talk about his meeting last week with the State Highway Administration (SHA).  He spoke of projects that are a well behind schedule and mired in over-regulation by SHA.  

As I listened, I was reminded of the challenges that WMHS had as we were building the new hospital on Willowbrook Road.  SHA was an obstacle pretty much every step of the way.   I finally said enough is enough and told them that we would not be paying for roundabouts at the I-68 interchange nor would we be paying to have sidewalks installed from I-68 to the new hospital along Willowbrook Road for the less than ten people walking on average each day.  WMHS was expected to pay millions of dollars, beyond what we had to pay as it was, to accomplish SHA's master plan for road improvements in western Maryland.  They were told that if they persisted, I would go public with how they were single handedly trying to ensure that a new hospital would never be built in Cumberland.  Finally, reasonableness prevailed and they backed off of their demand for roundabouts at the I-68 interchange and sidewalks along Willowbrook Road.  WMHS was still required to pay for the road improvements related to the new hospital and sidewalks to Allegany College, but the craziness finally stopped. 

Recently, I was at a meeting with Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and I had the opportunity to talk about the over-regulation in Maryland, specifically SHA.  He was empathetic and said that he would tackle that issue if elected as he was well aware of the challenges that exist to create new business in Maryland.  Maybe, help is on the way.

Emotional Competence

This morning, I was getting a briefing on the recent successes within our Leadership Institute at WMHS.  The focus was on how we are doing with training our evolving leaders.  The leadership group in training is nearing completion of a nine-month program; and, as a result, executive leadership has been introduced to some very talented people in our organization—our succession of leaders.  So, the program has proven to be a success and will be built upon going forward.  

As was discussed this morning, one of those areas to be built upon will be emotional competence.  It is no longer simply how smart you are or what you know; it's also about how you handle yourself and how you are viewed by others. We go to great lengths in selecting and on-boarding staff to ensure that they are the right fit for WMHS.  Through our more recently established processes, we do very well in choosing the right people.  Not only do they need to have the right training and education, but they need to be able to embrace our mission, our values and our service excellence standards.  It is one's ability to demonstrate these prime qualities that will keep someone employed at WMHS.  In simple terms, it is more than the hard skills, those few initials after your name i.e. RN, MD, RD, Pharm D, etc.  You have to possess the soft skills as well: the knowledge, the job skills and the experience.  These soft skills equate to that emotional competence on the part of the individual employee.  

The upcoming message to our evolving leaders through the Leadership Institute will be that possessing a strong emotional competence along with the necessary hard skills is the difference between an outstanding leader and a mediocre one.  Going forward embrace the importance of emotional competence.

Private Conversations Are Now A Thing Of The Past

First and foremost, I am not condoning the vile, racist comments made by LA Clippers owner, Donald Sterling.  In my opinion, what he said warranted his banishment from the NBA.  I think that it was Oprah Winfrey who said it best when she said "he has a slave owner mentality" and he does.  He has made hundreds of millions of dollars in a sports business where the commodity is professional basketball players, of which close to 90% of the players are African American.  It is hard to imagine being a racist and owning a professional basketball franchise.  

With all of that said, what is also alarming and will now become a trend is the the recording of what are thought to be private conversations.  Certainly, there are laws that cover such acts; however, the revenge or shock value will win out in each instance.  We are heading for a slippery slope as the smartphone is pressed into service beyond its videotaping capabilities, those instant messages and unexpected photographs.  Simply placing what appears to be an idle smartphone on a table and recording private conversations which are meant to be just that, private, will become a trend in an instant.  Maybe it's time to start having guests to your home check their smartphones at the door.