An organization's culture can affect everything from patient safety to employee engagement, from innovation to financial performance. Culture can cause employees to become invested in an organization's mission and propel it forward to reach its goals, or it can lead to setbacks for hospitals and health systems.
"Culture is not something that we can just define," said Bryan J. Warren, manager of healthcare solutions at Select International, during a discussion on building a collaborative senior team at Becker's Hospital Review 6th Annual Meeting in Chicago. Although culture is extremely complex, the first step is for an organization to determine what they want the culture of their organization to be. "If you really want to change the culture of your organization, you have to dedicate the time and resources to defining your culture," said Mr. Warren. After that, organizations must decide how to achieve that goal, including deciding who they need to bring on board as leaders to be involved in their collaborative senior team.
Building a collaborative team is difficult, and that task is even more challenging in the healthcare industry. "The open collaborative culture we see in a lot of successful organizations in other industries, we have a very hard time duplicating in healthcare," said Mr. Warren. However, it is possible, and John Sheehan, president of UW Health American Center in Madison, Wis., and senior vice president of UW Hospital and Clinics, shared his success story during the discussion.
Mr. Sheehan was charged with building a collaborative senior team at UW Health American Center, which is slated to open this summer. The new facility will include 14 operating rooms and 56 patient rooms as well as a sports performance wellness center. The new center is closely intertwined with UW Health, as it will offer a seamless access point for comprehensive UW Health services.
One of Mr. Sheehan's major challenges in developing a collaborative team at American Center was establishing a new culture within a traditional and successful academic medical center. The American Center staff is made up of a mix of new outside hires as well as staff being brought over from the main campus. "Getting people to think outside of the box from the way they do things in an academic medical center had been difficult for the staff moving over," said Mr. Sheehan. To help overcome that issue, American Center created a council structure aligned with the larger system. "There is wide involvement from folks at the main campus," said Mr. Sheehan.
American Center utilized executive assessment to identify and develop key physician and senior leaders to build its collaborative leadership team. The assessment provided actionable information that showed the leaders' strengths as well as their areas for improvement. "We've had sessions where we talk about the findings from that assessment and look at our scores as a team, and each person has an individual development report," said Mr. Sheehan. When it comes to hiring new leaders, the assessment is used as a tool to determine if an individual's behaviors and competencies are in line with those American Center desires.
By dedicating the time and resources needed, Mr. Sheehan and the American Center have made significant progress in establishing a collaborative culture. Although there are a number of issues to address and challenges to overcome during the process, Mr. Sheehan said one of the most important things for his organization in creating its collaborative team was "to take the process slow and to get the buy-in of the department chairs and the dean."