Our journey with the Studer Group has officially begun. On October 4, the Leadership Group met with our appointed Coach: Julie O’Shaugnessy.
If you haven’t heard of the Studer Group, you probably have lots of questions….such as:
Who’s the Studer Group?
The Studer Group was founded in 1999 by Quint Studer, to teach important lessons and tools that he developed in his career in health care. Studer Group is now part of Huron Consulting, a dominant health care consulting group. The Studer Group Mission: To make healthcare a better place for employees to work, physicians to practice medicine, and patients to receive care. We think that all three of the objectives in their mission statement are important….and that the order is important.
Why do we need them?
This is about sustainability. We’ve grown a LOT in the last ten years, and we need to continue to grow to meet the need in our communities. At the same time, health care has changed, and change will only accelerate in the future. Growth and change put stress on any culture, and require capable leadership. Those two things – culture and leadership – are foundational to our business, and the three together are essential to sustain us into the future.
How did you pick the Studer Group?
Studer Group gets results! Today, Studer Group is engaged with 120 health care organizations. Twenty of those are Community Health Centers, a lot like us. We spoke to many of their partners, examined their results, interviewed their leaders and came away convinced: Studer Group is the best fit for our needs.
How do they work?
They know that change does not come easy…or quickly. Julie O’Shaugnessy is our lead Coach, but she will be enlisting many of her peers at SG to help us improve. We have committed to a three year engagement. It begins with learning about us (assessment), determining our needs (diagnosis), and recommending a plan (treatment). All CHCW managers have already participated in a survey, and we received those results on October 4. On October 17 & 18, a team from SG will be at many CHCW sites to conduct meetings to hear from our staff. Your managers will be making recommendations to get a broad representation from each site to these meetings. From there, plans will unfold. Quarterly, all CHCW managers, directors and supervisors (at least 40 staff) will come together for a day long “Leadership Development”. We will all build skills and learn tools at the same time. Culture change comes from hardwiring comprehensive and transformational evidence-based leadership.
What outcomes are you looking for?
Studer Group’s efforts are primarily directed at helping us all to find meaning and satisfaction in the work that we do:
- Build accountability systems and develop leaders so that results are hardwired across the organization
- Improve employee and physician satisfaction as evidenced by reduced turnover and improved engagement results
- Increase physician/provider satisfaction by hardwiring Studer Group tactics, and engage physicians and other providers as true partners in this journey
- Align physicians/providers with organizational objectives to create a culture of quality, safety and improved physician and provider engagement
When we achieve those outcomes, others follow:
- Improve patients’ perception of care and consistency of patient experience across the system as evidenced by Customer’s experience ratings
- Improve pay-for-performance success
- Achieve financial results, operations efficiency, clinical outcomes as result of implementing the Evidence-Based Leadership model
- Improve patient access as evidenced by reduced no-show/cancellation rates, decreasing wait times and expanding availability of appointment options to demonstrate patient-centric culture
It will require patience, but we have great expectations.
Sincerely,
Mike Maples