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Patient Satisfaction Consultants, Service Excellence Consultants for Hospitals, Employee Satisfaction for Hospitals, HCAHPS Consultants, Hospital Service Excellence Consultants
 
Create a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage as the Employer and Provider of Choice. 

The HCAHPS 60-Day Quickstart

High-impact training, coaching, and best practice systems that get HCAHPS scores moving.
Create a long-term sustainable, competitive advantage as the Long Term Care Provider of Choice.
High-impact training, coaching, and best practice systems that get HCAHPS scores moving.

Bellwether

Turn real-time patient feedback into fast and sustainable improvements that improve HCAHPS scores.

 

 News

 

2009 Releases

An Attitude of Excellence: Featured keynote at the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference

This presentation by Willie Jolley CSP, CPAE focuses on 5 major areas: leadership development at every level of the team, change management, team building, customer service that creates a WOW!, and attitude enhancement that focuses on the fact that only those who drive change maximize their potential.  There are consistent, specific strategies that always co-exist with '5-star' hospitals.  These steps create an incredible program that mixes leadership, change management, teambuilding, and customer service - all into one program.

 

Becoming a Category of One: Featured keynote at the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference

>What does it mean to be a 'category of one?'.  In this interactive and entertaining presentation, Joe Calloway invites you to choose to be extraordinary.  Success isn't rocket science - it's ordinary people doing work that they care deeply about....Make the choice! 

 

CEU Eligibility

The Healthcare Service Excellence Conference is delighted to have partnered with QHR Learning Institute to provide Continuing Nurse Education Credits.
9 Reasons to Attend the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference: The Leadership Factor in Value-Based Purchasing
  1. See and assess the latest technology to help drive HCAHPS scores 
  2. Learn from, and challenge experts in hardwiring strategies that have engaged entire hospital staffs
  3. Get practical tools and strategies to motivate managers and associates to achieve service excellence goals, through effective performance appraisal processes
  4. Identify and track opportunities for improvement related to patient care, HCAHPS improvement, and VBP preparation
  5. Learn how the makeup of individuals can play a role in disruptive events
  6. Create a positive impact on your HCAHPS scores
  7. Learn how to prepare for Value-Based Purchasing
  8. Take guaranteed, immediately implementable strategies and best practices back and have an immediate impact on patient experience.
  9. Connect with and learn from a peer group 450 leaders who are making positive differences in the patient experience on a daily basis.
     

 
The Leadership Factor in Value-Based Purchasin

 

With relentless pressures such as present on admission (POA), recovery audit contractors (RAC), hospital acquired conditions (HAC), payment for performance (P4P), HCAHPS, Never Events and Core Measures, hospitals have a new urgency to understand how to thrive in a value-based purchasing environment.  


While many hospitals have approached these initiatives as discrete and unrelated, connecting the dots between these initiatives reveals the urgency (and the opportunity) of VBP.
 
The Healthcare Service Excellence Conference has focused this year's agenda on Value-Based Purchasing to help navigate through the complexity.
 
It is a must attend for any healthcare professional.  
 
Sessions of Interest:
  • The Leadership Factor in Value-Based Purchasing
  • Hospital of Choice 2010
  • CMS Value Based Purchasing
  • Improving HCAHPS Results on a Unit-Level Basis

 
Leadership That Drives Results: Clint Maun Keynoting at Healthcare Service Excellence Conference October 28-30, 200

Today's healthcare organizations must promote proactive leadership techniques which drive measurable results for improvement and growth. There is no time left for process without results.

 
Clint Maun, CSP, will lead an invigorating session on the topic at the 10th annual Healthcare Service Excellence Conference in Nashville, TN.
 
Attendees will learn specific techniques for mobilizing an effective and productive team.

 
Who's Your Gladys?

 

...a powerful new book by Marilyn Suttle and Lori Jo West, published by AMACOM.

 
It's filled with case studies that reveal how large and small companies from a variety of industries avoid creating difficulty for their customers.
 
 
To hear an interview with author Marilyn Suttle that is specific to customer service for healthcare leaders, visit the "Hospital of Choice Podcast" - a series hosted by Custom Learning Systems to help hospital leaders with the training, tools, and perspective to measure patient experience. 
 

 
Lead the Charge on Value-Based Purchasing!

 

The concept of value-based purchasing goes much deeper than a simple attempt to get costs lower.
 
It's also about improving quality and responsiveness to patients.
 
Healthcare Service Excellence Association has unveiled a bold theme for this year's annual conference on October 28-30th, Nashville TN - The Leadership Factor in Value-Based Purchasing: Team Based Strategies to Become the Hospital of Choice.
 
Value can, and will, be defined for healthcare, and this conference is leading the charge. Schedule October 28-30, 2009, and let's meet in Nashville!

 
Results of Empowerment Survey
The highlight of the Empowerment Survey, conducted through our last Value-Based Healthcare Report (2 weeks ago) clearly showed that healthcare leaders felt that they had significant authority to determine how their job is completed.  Other highlights: 
  • 80% of respondents indicated that they can decide on their own how to go about doing their work...an indicator of empowerment
  • 60% of respondents felt considerable independence and freedom in how they do their job (a moderating indicator)
  • 60% of respondents are very satisfied with their jobs
 
Empowerment is a key ingredient to employee satisfaction. 

 
Fast Facts: The Healthcare Service Excellence Conference

 

The Leadership Factor in Value-Based Purchasing: Team-Based Strategies to Become the Hospital of Choice

 

 
HCAHPS Bellwethers

 

Are your HCAHPS results below where you'd like them to be?

Bellwether is a performance improvement tool that helps hospitals improve HCAHPS outcomes, by aggressively actioning your highly-correlated patient dissatisfiers at a unit level...on a daily basis.
 
Using inputs from bedside, rounding, and families, CNO's and Quality Directors are able to actively direct continuous improvement - and monitor outcomes on a daily basis. 
 

 
Actions to Take to Become a Better Leader

 

Build collaboration and consensus around a common, well-understood quality improvement agenda in your unit. 

 
Be a data-freak!  Data-measured quality improvements provide the objectivity you need to celebrate successes, and continue to drill-down, to make improvements on a daily basis. 
 
Increase interdepartmental  and inter-shift coordination to reduce inefficiencies to improve the quality of care delivery.  Use your data to actively reach-out to other departments who might be able to help solve, or provide expertise to solve your problems. 
 
Assure that your entire unit knows every single quality improvement guidelines and performance improvement tool.  Conduct random audits. 
 
Consider attending the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference, October 28-30, 2009! 
 
 
     - Click here for more information about the conference.

 
Building an Attitude of Excellence

 

Any performance improvement initiative will struggle, if not fail if there is not a collective acknowledgement by both staff and management that there is a need to improve.

 
Getting to this realization point can be the toughest part in a performance improvement or culture change initiative. 
 
While senior managers intuitively realize this, the rush to implementation often short-circuits maximum effectiveness of PI initiatives. 
 
Willey Jolley, a keynoter at the Healthcare Service Excellence Conferene will be outline 5 practical steps to accelerate your team to the plateau of 'attitude of excellence', from which performance improvement can be managed with ease.   
 
     - Click here for more information about the conference

 
Accountability: An essential ingredient to a high-performing team.

 

Because of its ability to standardize performance through industry-wide measurement and benchmarking processes (not the least of which is HCAHPS), healthcare truly is the model for many other industries.

 
The irony though, is that many hospitals have a long way to go to bring disciplined improvement processes to bear in their organizational cultures. 
 
Many hospitals struggle with getting things done.  Key deliverables are forgotten, people are 'given a pass', or goals are reprioritized into oblivion.
 
It's often hard to get stuff done.
 
Organizational accountability really is a cultural issue.  To change it, substantial commitment and training must take place throughout the leadership ranks.  This is often accelerated with goal-management softward package, but a 'culture of accountability' goes further.  It begins and ends with an attitude of excellence, and an unwillingness for colleagues to tolerate below-target behaviors in each other.
 
If your hospital is struggling to improve accountability protocols, you will be interested in sending a delegate to the Healthcare Service Excellence Conference, October 28-30, 2009. 
 
The presentation, The Journey to an Effective Accountability Protocol will point-out the key learnings along the path toward an accountability process that supports organizational aspirations.
 
     - Click here for more information about the conference

 
Results of Culture Assessment Survey

 

The Culture Assessment Survey offered during the last Value Based Healthcare Report (2 weeks ago) highlighted opportunities that healthcare leaders should consider:

 
  • 89% of respondents indicated that people work like they are part of a team and that people are viewed as a substantial competive advantage...both indicators of sstrong cultures
  • A 'red flag' that leaders should be aware-of, came with 'across the board' responses to 'Leaders Practice What They Preach', indicating a need for strengthing leadership training to make leaders aware of the significance of their actions
  • Also worrisome, was the response of 44% of respondents who indicated that their approach to doing business was 'Consistent and Predictable'.  Likely linked with the issue above, this points to a need for leaders to become stronger communicators.
  • 33% of respondents indicated that people from different parts of the organization do not share the same perspective.  This points to an opportunity to align unit-level mission-vision-values with corporate, through training and communication, delivered through unit-level managers

 
Leadership, Accountability, and Results

 

Building a championship culture requires creating an environment of ownership and accountability at every level of the organization. From top administrators to front-line staff, everyone needs to act like 'owners' as opposed to 'renters' in their areas.
 

 
The Leadership Factor in Value-Based Purchasing
 
Team-Based Strategies to Become The Hospital of Choice.
 
The Healthcare Service Excellence Conference
October 28-30, 2009

 
Five Actions to Take Today, to Improve Your Leadership Effectiveness

 

The essential ingredient of quality improvement in healthcare is leadership. Without the right leadership, quality improvement efforts are, for all practical purposes, doomed. Yet with the right leadership - strong, directed, and committed - anything is possible.  

Below are five actions to take today to improve your leadership effectiveness:
  1. Build collaboration and consensus around a common quality agenda
  2. Aggregate and disseminate comparable performance data
  3. Increase coordination and reduce inefficiencies to improve the quality of care delivery
  4. Develop and disseminate guidelines and quality improvement tools
  5. Educate providers and consumers in the use of information to support quality improvement 

 
Visionary Leadership and Value-Based Purchasing

 

There are several pillars to value-based purchasing and leadership happens to be the foundation on which these pillars stand.  Change is not possible without leadership, and sustainable change will not happen without leadership that is visionary, inspired, and committed over the long term.


In order to embrace the vision of value-based purchasing and craft the right value-based purchasing strategies, hospitals will need leadership, innovative models and best practices.

 
Nurse Leadership: Build a Strong Core

 

A successful Nurse Leadership program (one that is tied to personal goals and performance review) will demonstrate positive changes in nurse leadership behaviors and help improve patient satisfaction, nurse recruitment and turnover.  

 
A successful Nurse Leadership program will focus on the following:  
  1. Building Relationships and Trust
  2. Creating an Empowering Work Environment
  3. Creating an Environment that Supports Knowledge Development and Integration
  4. Leading and Sustaining Change
  5. Balancing Competing Values and Priorities

The pressures of HCAHPS and Value-Based Purchasing underscore the need for continual investment in Nurse Leadership.  More...

 
Top CEO's Share Same Leadership Traits

 

CEO's at the top hospitals in the United States differ little in their opinions about the kinds of leadership skills needed for the future success of their hospital. They rank strategic thinking, team building and communication as the three most critical skills for the success of their organization.

  1. Strategic Thinking
  2. Team Building
  3. Communication (Internal & External)
  4. Critical Thinking
  5. Listening
  6. Financial Management
  7. Change Management
  8. Crisis Management
While the list above profiles the top leadership skills, below are a list of leadership traits ranked in order of importance for a CEO.
  1. Integrity / Credibility
  2. Results-Oriented
  3. Visionary
  4. Collaborative
  5. Innovator
  6. Risk Taker
  7. Systematic
  8. Charisma 

Source: "Hospital CEO Leadership Survey."  2005.  Cejka Search and Solucient, LLC

 
The Big Questions Around Culture Change

 

Professor Smircich, in his 1983 article Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis, in Administrative Science Quarterly states that culture is the beliefs and values understood by employees.

 
Simply put, "it's what really goes on around here". 
 
But, when 'what's going on around here' is no longer acceptable when does the organization get ready to look at changing the culture?
  • What are the risks?
  • How do you know when the time is right?
  • What's the business case?

Clearly, culture change is not something to be entered into without a strong reason, or an integrated plan. 

As the financial and quality demands in healthcare continue to escalate, often, a fundamental solution to many organization-wide challenges is to reignite the culture of the organization.  Draw new boundaries.  Set new expectations for excellence. 

 
Some indicators that your culture may be hindering your progress are:
  1. We have excess personnel and too many job classifications.
  2. We have persistently poor patient satisfaction or HCAHPS scores.
  3. We tolerate incompetence.
  4. We have too much red tape.
  5. Our goals are unclear, and the criteria for measuring organizational success is unclear.
  6. We're afraid of conflict.
  7. We have lousy communication processes. 
  8. Power is centralized around a few people. 
  9. Our employees don't care/are demoralized.
  10. We've lost market share.

These are just a few of the many elements that are used to completely assess an organization's culture.  The process of a culture diagnostic is comprehensive, because the stakes are high.  More...

 
The Bottom 50 HCAHPS Performers: A Look at How Culture Might be an Impediment

 

We set our analysts loose on the 2007 hospitalcompare data set, to analyze the bottom-50 hospitals in the category "Percent of patients who reported that YES, they would definitely recommend the hospital."
 
The objective of the analysis was to isolate trends that might point to cultural issues common in the lower performers at this time.
 
The analysis showed that the worst performance categories for these hospitals were in the areas of 'Staff Explanation'.  They showed a general desire by patients to have their treatments, medications, and recovery instructions clearly explained to them. 
 
While it's too soon to tell whether these failures are a cultural issue, the results might certainly be seen as an indicator of a culture-challenge.
 
Click here for the results.

 
2 Reasons to Implement a Service Improvement Plan

 

1. Bad service drives off customers, and reduces profit.

 

 
2. Building brand loyalty in service-driven businesses can best be done one transaction at a time, by fully engaged, well-trained frontline associates. 

 
5 Inexpensive Actions to Take Today to Improve Culture
  1. Have a thorough culture audit performed by an experienced change agent
  2. Build a business case.  What are the desired outcomes, and what is the likelihood of delivery? Be sure to build elements such as HCAHPS' evolution to Value-Based Purchasing into your plan/consider NPS, market share data.
  3. In the short term, bolster your accountability processes by installing a goal tracking software such as GoalMaster
  4. Tighten review processes of survey vendor (and HCAHPS) reports, to assure drill-down to root cause by unit, and more important, action plan and accountability by unit.
  5. Install interim progress measures such as Bellwether to assure daily progress is being made  

 
5 Facts About Culture
  1. Culture indicates the 'way of life' for workers who often take its influence for granted (they simply accept it). The firm's culture becomes obvious when an aspect of it causes a corporate setback (it must change).
  2. Culture is stable over time and it resists quick changes.
  3. A culture involves internal and external aspects. Internally, a culture might encourage quality, cost effectiveness and accuracy.
  4. Culture can be measured, evaluated and perfected.
  5. Culture can develop in a random fashion or it can be managed to support the firm's strategic plan.
Source: Smircich, L. (1983) 'Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis', Administrative Science Quarterly 28: 339-58.

 
NPS: The One Number You Need to Grow

 

One of the most effective approaches to building patient loyalty is to use your Net-Promoter Score (NPS) to create a culture focused on the patient experience.  


NPS is a simple concept based on a single question: How likely are you to recommend this hospital to a friend or family member?

Using your NPS as a predictor of Return-to-Provider behavior, allows Providers to improve the patient experience and increase future patient volumes through existing patients and their personal networks.
 
More importantly, actively using your NPS as a performance measurement holds all staff accountable for the patient experience

 
Introducing Bellwether: Turning Listening Posts into Performance Improvement

 

Patient's families are often more aware, and certainly more vocal than the patient about the patient's experience. They are, in themselves, a critical source of raw, uncomplicated, patient satisfaction data.


That's the concept behind Bellwether, a robust report card that looks at the patient experience through the eyes of your most undervalued resource: the patient's family.

Bellwether offers family members a digital platform to voice their concerns, or thanks, on questions involving the quality of care their family member has received.

It also provides real-time measurements that allow a Provider to uncover, understand, and craft new methods of patient care that go beyond traditional satisfaction measures. 

 
Resilient Leadership in Turbulent Times

 

When the economy tanks, effective leaders are needed most.

 
Managing through economic hardship requires that all leaders acknowledge the uncertainty of the economy, and display a sensitivity to its impact on all staff.
 
Effective managers realize that it's not just employees who may be feeling a new set of stresses, but entire families and neighborhoods. 
 
Leaders that can provide comfort, communication, and resiliency training are the leaders that will emerge the winners when the dust settles...and so will their teams.

 
Responsiveness to Call Button: The Big Opportunity to Improve the Patient Experience

 

According to AHRQ's 2007 summary of HCAHPS data, 47% of patients reported less than 'always' to the question "During the hospital stay, after you pressed the call button, how often did you get help as soon as you wanted it?"

 
In hospitals with effective rounding processes in place, this number is of course dramatically lower.  How effective is yours?
 
We recommend implementing an hourly rounding process, as well as a leader rounding process.
 
An effective log-and-analysis process can produce the following benefits:
 
1. Reduction in the number of call button requests in the first place
2. Trend-analysis by unit of patient needs related to call buttons and other factors likely to affect patient experience (HCAHPS, VBP impact)
3. Immediate-intervention when feedback indicates 'hot zones'
4. Assessment and adjustment of current improvement effort

 
25 Years!
On May 1, 2009, the Custom Learning team will be uncorking the bubbly, and toasting Founder and CEO Brian Lee's 25th Year in business!
 
Send Brian a personal email by clicking here!

 
Value-Based Purchasing Maximizing Reimbursement Boot Camp 
There's simply no way around it now: 'patient experience' will shortly become a direct and quantifiable cost center.
 
As Value-Based Purchasing moves into the patient experience/HCAHPS realm, the financial implication of having an effective HCAHPS management plan in place is critical.
 
The Value-Based Purchasing Maximizing Reimbursement Boot Camp will empower your team with the discipline and insight to aggressively manage the highly intangible, and potentially very expensive patient experience HCAHPS domains.
 
Call us today to schedule a private, on-site session with your leadership team!
 
1.800.667.7325 extension 206

 
The Magic of Frontline Leadership
Nothing beats the quality of experience delivered by a highly professional, motivated, and stunningly energized workforce. 
 
But it can't happen overnight.

With HCAHPS on us, and Value-Based Purchasing just around the corner, we urge you to look upon 'Patient Experience' as both a financial and strategic priority, and begin moving your team toward the vision of becoming 'highly professional, stunningly motivated, and amazingly energized'. 

First, make the commitment to play 'long ball'. 
 
Acknowledge that most competitors will be 'caught sleeping' on this issue, and take the competitive advantage by capitalizing on the benefits that a truly engaged and motivated workforce can provide.
 
Next, find creative and meaningful ways to reignite motivation in a sustainable, authentic, purposeful way. 
 
Then, find a way to keep all managers and supervisors involved.  Make them accountable for supporting your vision of providing the 'best patient experience in the market'.
 
Not quite sure how to get this off the ground?
 
Book a CEO's Service Leadership Initiative!
 
It'll isolate the areas where your staff are actively disengaged, and positively engaged - you'll be provided with critical information to plan an effective strategy to build the best patient experience in the market, with a focus on attaining peak HCAHPS results and VBP yield.
 
Click here for more information!

 
Value-Based Purchasing Leadership Preparation

 

There's no way around it now: "patient experience" will shortly become a direct and quantifiable cost center with enormous significance to any hospital's bottom line.
 
In the past several months, we've conducted numerous VBP risk-assessments, and found several hospitals at-risk from $200,000 to amounts well over $1,000,000.
 
Patient experience is about to become a senior management priority. To prepare senior leaders, we're offering 3 services, a one hour webinar (high-level strategy), a series of regional conferences that'll empower senior leaders to architect and achieve their HCAHPS goals, and a private, customized, on-site VBP Leadership Preparation Conference.
 
Listening to Families can help move HCAHPS Scores! 
Does your hospital make it a practice to listen to the families of your patients?  Family members often are more aware, and certainly more vocal than the patient about the patient's experience.  More...

 
Are your staff engaged?
Since HCAHPS is really a 'perception-of-frequency' survey, the engagement level of your staff will, to a very large degree, determine your success.
 
With VBP on the near-horizon, it's a perfect time (and an incredibly cost-effective exercise) to conduct a diagnostic of your staff's engagement level, while providing them a 'boost' to buy into your HCAHPS vision.
 
  • Are your staff supportive and engaged?
  • Does the culture of your workplace support your HCAHPS and clinical service excellence aspiration?
  • How do you know for sure?
 
A CEO's Service Leadership Initiative provides the answers for you.  By isolating the areas where your staff are actively disengaged, and positively engaged - you'll be provided with critical information to plan an effective HCAHPS and VBP strategy.
 
Click here for more information!

 
Would Patients Recommend? - profile of the top 50 
We set our analysts loose on the task of uncovering the composite HCAHPS profile of the top-50 performers in the "Would patients recommend" question.  More...

 
How to use your survey vendor's analytics to move HCAHPS scores
Your survey vendor provides a wealth of improvement data. 
 
Are you using it?

Ensure there's a monthly 'drill down' of your patient satisfaction vendor's report with your senior leadership team.

Identify the Units that are succeeding, and the Units that are struggling. 
 
Challenge the senior leaders responsible for the struggling Units to develop and implement action plans that specifically address the lagging HCAHPS question.  (Click here to download a set of procedures related to this process.)
 
Follow-up at the next month's review meeting, to assure all action items have been completed.