Reflection

Thanks for all the kind words and thoughts.

My "reflection" speech during the planning meeting for the hospital went really well on Wednesday. I talked to a conference room of about 30-40 people. Most are VP's or higher for either the local hospital or Peacehealth chain, was the chief of staff / department head, or is a community leader, etc. My speech was sandwiched in between the Regional V.P.'s opening remarks and the kick off 'rah rah' speech by the CEO.

The speech was kinda challenging because: I was to "give voice to the patient experience", showing "an example the typical patient care received at the hospital" and "why I am an advocate for the hospital" through describing the absolute worst day of my life while creating the springboard mood for the new 'goal setting' process we're starting. - This all eloquently said in 5 minutes (or less) and without crying. There were a couple times when my voice reverberated with emotion, but it actually added power and impact to the message. I think I set the stage really well for developing a realistic, viable yet ambitious plan to create a culture / patient experience of compassion, dignity, safety and enabling our customers to be an active participant in their healthcare where people will recommend the hospital to their friends. I had 10-15 people come up to me afterwards and thank me for sharing my experiences and how much it impacted them. It was nice to have that validation after really putting my heart out there for public consumption.

The reason for this planning process is that the administration wants to build on previous strategic plans. (It's been 6-8 years since the last one-so we're due.) Even though we have a great little hospital (one of the top 100 small hospitals in the country), it suffers from what I call "ugly stepchild" syndrome. No one is truly respected and valued in their own home town. We're only 45 minutes from Portland and 2 hours from Seattle, so if it's REALLY serious, the patients are shipped there for treatment. So people think that only healthcare in one of the big cities is really good. That kind of thinking is really dangerous!! (I know I don't want to drive to Portland if my kid has a broken bone or someone was having a heartattck. - not to mention the economic damage that would happen around here if a major family-wage employer went belly up and most of the local medical community had to leave. I really respect the CEO to always be looking for ways to improve and develop good community relations.

All in all, a good meeting. There will be quite a few "virtual" meetings over the next couple months that I'll have to attend. (One of our retired community leaders is representing our patient advisory council since most the rest of us can't get off work to go to the rest of the meetings.)