On October 9th, Brendan will serve on the panel “Healthcare Clinical and Quality Issues – Ideas for Improvement” at Becker’s Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place October 9-12, 2019 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Brendan’s session, click here.
Question: What does healthcare need more of?
Brendan Williams: We made progress in treating the whole patient, but we lag in terms of supporting the whole organization. Patients, money, assets, and liabilities move across our organizations. Continuing to drive decision making within the quadruple aim framework should enhance system thinking. Less of? To attain the quadruple aim, healthcare needs fewer silos. Growing up in a town with more cows than people, I appreciate the storage and protection provided by silos. However, silos in healthcare can promote catastrophic failure.
Q: What is one topic or issue you’ve been investing time in to better understand as of late?
BW: I am participating in research regarding the relationship among elements of organizational culture and never events. Never events create a sense of urgency leading to changes in processes. Preliminary analysis shows a strong relationship between organizational culture and never events.
Q: What contributes to better conversations between a health system’s financial and clinical leaders?
BW: We appreciate how storytelling can inform the head and touch the heart. To improve communication across the healthcare silo’s, I support storytelling in a way that connects the key performance indicators for stakeholders. The quadruple aim is a balanced scorecard. Providing healthcare is mostly a function of human behaviors. Proper behaviors should improve KPI measures. By crafting the story in parts that align with each aim we can reach across the silo’s and highlight the interdependence of KPI. The health systems financial leaders can focus on how the story aligns their KPI while the clinical leaders identify with their KPI when time permits ask me to tell a story.
What contributes to better conversations between a health system’s financial and clinical leaders?
At Becker's 4th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, taking place November 2–5 in Chicago, more than 1,500 hospital and health system executives tackle decisions that determine whether organizations thrive or merely survive: protecting margins under cost pressure, choosing where to grow, renegotiating payer relationships, stabilizing the workforce and proving real ROI on technology. This is where leaders work through them together, face-to-face. Apply for complimentary registration now.
