The new year (2022) is off to an inauspicious start, or at least not the start many of us hoped for given everything healthcare providers have been doing to prevent the spread of COVID and move on to other initiatives.
Hospital capacity issues are being impacted by the latest surge. Provider burnout is both a care delivery and recruiting issue. Staff members are calling in sick or testing positive at extraordinary numbers, even for January. And people and patients suffering from everything but the omicron variant are still suffering because of the omicron variant.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem hasn’t changed either, and all of the aforementioned issues are just green icing flowing down the cake left out in the rain.
Perception is Reality
When we poll average Americans about ‘the first word that comes to mind when you think of healthcare?’, their answers are not transparent, lifesaving or invaluable.
Consumer confidence in the health care system, insurance plans, and their ability to afford care has been on the decline for years. At some point, it’s healthier to admit when something is broken than to keep making accommodations and excuses for ‘the way it is’.
Because if we’re being honest with each other, there were issues with capacity, operations, policies and culture before COVID arrived. Slow to adapt to evolving consumer expectations, the pandemic just exacerbated these issues that have been status quo for some time.
So we have some work to do if we’re going to restore the faith in our communities, and the first step to recovery is acceptance. And if we’re willing to take that hard look in the mirror, there is also an opportunity to map out a plan by meeting with stakeholders and asking sensitive but sensible questions.
Time for a Brainstorming Discovery:
1. Where are we under-performing and what have we learned?
2. What can we fix (today) that will have the greatest impact?
3. How will we successfully implement change and measure it?
When COVID disruptively changed the game, the initial reaction was to hunker down and play defense. But by now we should understand the new rules and start making adjustments to the way we play the game. Bottom line… it’s time to account for the ‘COVID Effect’, flip the narrative, and use it to our advantage to develop innovative solutions and inspire the change we want consumers to experience in healthcare.
Cost, Quality or ‘Accessibility’
What we can change or fix today to have the greatest impact is different for every organization. Open and honest evaluations of the past two years (and beyond) should reveal our identity, like it or not, and how we’re performing.
Prioritizing initiatives, when it comes to affecting change, must still adhere to the old adage “Cost, Quality or Availability… you can only pick two”. But accepting this truth really allows us to separate the clutter from making a difference in people’s lives. And since the conditions of the game have changed, then so can our approach.
Assuming that Cost is beyond the control of any single entity, and Quality is a table stake expectation that should be an area of incremental continuous improvements, then Availability, or ’Accessibility’, can be our starting point.
If simplicity was a key factor, is there anything that could affect change more than improving the accessibility of care in 2022 and beyond? This can include anything from exploring ways to make care more accessible virtually, to improving the customer and patient experience [CX/PX], or changing your hours and outdated policies.
Progress is a Great KPI
We’re only three weeks into the new year. It’s not too late to reconsider any abstract elements of the plan you’ve put in motion, or refine them to achieve quantifiable results. Because progress is the KPI everyone would like to point to in fourth quarter and beyond, and you have to be open to change to make progress.
But be careful. Sacred cows are not the only obstacles to progress––so is failure to implement or trying to take on too much change at the same time.
To avoid this, it’s best to look at your initiatives as a road map with (realistic) achievable milestones. Break everything into digestible chunks and make it palatable for everyone… including the patient. Team augmentation is also a possibility that shouldn’t be overlooked if there is a need for a temporary role during implementation.
With an implementation plan in place, we can then apply the metrics to measure change, and there are eight essential metrics we can use to arrive at a baseline for improvement in every aspect of Quality and Accessibility. And if you’re having trouble arriving at those baseline metrics, we can help.
At the end of the year, if we can look back at the positive changes we made to improve accessibility in spite of COVID and mend those broken perceptions, we will be able to take on any other challenges and opportunities the future holds.
Introspective
When is the last time your leadership team conducted a true brainstorming session?
To advance beyond what we think we know today, we have to be open to discovery conversations where the problems are clearly identified and nothing is off the table when it comes to ideas or innovative solutions.
If you could use some help facilitating a brainstorming discovery, the HealthX Group can help with that, too.