Becker's Hospital Review

25 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP 25 CEO / STRATEGY • Against baseline numbers, we recorded 196 fewer mortalities 30 days post-discharge in 2018. • Compared to baseline numbers, mortalities from sepsis decreased by 67. We used artificial intelligence that processed more than 4,000 data points to track patients before they got sepsis and intervened based on algorithms. • We reduced length of stay days by 16,000 over our baseline metrics. In 2020, we set similar goals across our teams, and added a COVID-19 care management procedure across the system so all of our medical teams were sharing best practices around the novel coronavirus in a standardized way. Since we already had a process in place to stan- dardize clinical leadership decisions across each of our hospitals, we could efficiently communicate best practices around COVID-19 quickly. We did not have to start from square one. A note about clinician buy-in Physicians, nurses and other medical staff have an intrinsic level of buy-in for clinical improvement programs. ey want to provide pa- tients the highest quality of care, and they want commitment and the necessary resources from their organization to do so. It is critical to not attack existing vertical structures in clinical care when creating a new model that aims to eliminate silos. at is coun- terproductive. Change in leadership structure is not about eliminat- ing specialized medical and executive committees. Instead, it is about building a system that recognizes professional identities and creates new opportunities to connect communications across them. It is also important to create a recognition system for clinical excel- lence. We put in place a senior leadership award for individual teams who helped reach our high-performance goals and demonstrated results of systemwide implementation. In addition to recognition in front of senior executives, the individuals are each awarded up to $10,000 for their accomplishments. It is important to reinforce be- haviors that cultivate an environment of learning and sharing. What is next for Sentara Sentara is not perfect by any measure. We still have many clinical areas we will work toward improving. e area I see the most room for improvement for our high-perfor- mance model is the use of technology to accelerate data analysis. Tools that give us real-time analytics, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, hold the potential to dramati- cally improve our clinicians' ability to improve outcomes. We cannot misconstrue data analytics and AI/machine learning tools with the replacement of clinicians. Rather, these tools will allow our teams to accelerate and better absorb vast amounts of data. Today, each of our hospitals is working toward the same level of con- sistent high performance and shared learning that can be found at some of the best-performing health systems in the U.S. is kind of teamwork is core to our culture and values. We will continue to scale our high-performance design structure as the organization, and healthcare as a whole, grows and evolves. Many health systems like to highlight their high-performing flagship hospital as a representation of its greatest accomplishments. At Sen- tara, we firmly believe in the axiom that you are only as good as your lowest-level performer. We pride ourselves on viewing our perfor- mance in the aggregate, targeting consistently high performance and performance improvement across all of our clinical sites as critical to our success. n Small changes in leadership style can lead to big results By Iain Carlos W hen the going gets tough, small changes are of- ten better than large changes for putting an orga- nization back on track, Boris Groysberg, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and two other authors said in a Boston-based Harvard Business School post. The authors' evidence for the fruits of small change? Soccer. During the 2019-20 season, German soccer team Bayern Munich replaced their old manager, Niko Kovač, with Hansi Flick, who would lead Bayern to 33 wins in 36 games. But Mr. Flick didn't make massive staff or player changes. Instead, he utilized an effective leadership strategy to reinvigorate what Bayern already had, according to the post. Here's what organizational leaders, including leaders of healthcare organizations, can learn from Mr. Flick's manage- rial style, according to the post: 1. Work to empower the organization's leadership team and communicate trust rather than uncertainty. 2. Share leadership responsibility and make decisions jointly. 3. Establish expectations of individuals and the team as a whole, and affirm confidence in team members and a shared objective. 4. Trust and utilize the experienced members of the team rather than replace them. 5. Lead by example by demonstrating empathy and convic- tion to team members, and don't be afraid to serve team members. n Chicago hospital rebrands By Katie Adams C hicago-based Norwegian American Hospital changed its name to Humboldt Park Health. The new brand identity, announced Jan. 28, also fea- tures a reimagined tagline: "advancing health equity." The hospital was founded more than 125 years ago, when Humboldt Park's population was largely Norwegian Ameri- can. The neighborhood has since evolved and become more racially diverse. It is now one of Chicago's neighborhoods with the highest concentration of Latinx and Black residents. "Our new name and identity highlight our role in the future of healthcare while keeping true to our core mission to proac- tively engage with the community, provide health education, and promote wellness for all residents," said José Sánchez, the hospital's president and CEO. n

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