Oklahoma Hospital Transforms Its Culture ... Improving Healthcare Delivery!

The Challenge
In early 2002, two hospitals in Shawnee,OK decided to merge with the primary goal of convincing local residents that they did not need to travel to Oklahoma City to get quality health care.

Although they still operate from two separate facilities, the merger required the integration of two senior management teams and the creation of a culture that would motivate all employees to fulfill the new organization’s core purpose: Positively impacting human life through exceptional healthcare.

Glen Olson, a partner in Learning Unlimited Corporation from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was contacted by the VP of Clinical and Support Services to provide a team building session with the new senior team. The primary objectives were to help the senior staff from both hospitals to get to know each other, and to gain buy in from the group to the organization’s Core Purpose and Values. But this was just the beginnng!

The Process
Glen facilitated a two day session based on DiSC and included a number of experiential activities that required members to operate as a team. A few months later, he was asked to return and do another retreat… this time it was partly celebration, partly to integrate new team members, and partly to go deeper into the DiSC Model, with which team members had been really impressed.

Later in 2002, the hospital completed internal and external surveys to measure both employee and patient satisfaction. These surveys identified a number of areas that were of great concern to the management team. Direction, leadership, patient satisfaction and communication with employees were perceived to be poor. There was a lack of understanding of purpose and values, despite a significant effort to instill these into the culture.

The senior team by now had a lot of confidence in Glen, and he was asked if he would like to submit a proposal to address the challenges identified in the surveys. Glen made a presentation to the Senior Team in January 2003, with a recommendation that they implement the Management Development ProcessTM (MDP).

One of the key components of MDP that was most important for this situation is the Distributive Learning, which requires the participating managers to apply what they have learned by taking their team members through a number of the Inscape profiles. This part of the process ensured that all 800 hospital employees would be impacted by the process and gain an understanding of how what they do impacts on the organization’s purpose and values.

Things moved quickly after that. The decision to move ahead was made at the end of that presentation, and Glen started implementing the process in April 2003 with two groups of 16 Managers, including the CEO, all Vice-Presidents and Directors of all departments in the hospital. Glen has recently (a/o April '04) completed Module 3 of MDP with both groups.

The Results
The CEO and entire Executive Team are delighted with the results they are achieving. The hospital recently received the results from a follow up internal and external survey conducted in December 2003. The original benchmark survey as conducted in late 2002. Here is a summary of some key points from the Survey Results: (Directly quoted from the report.)

1. Very positive to note that 10 of 18 attributes measured are significantly higher than their respective database averages for other healthcare organizations. More importantly it is also positive to note that ALL 18 attributes scored significantly higher than the 2002 benchmark study.

2. The greatest strengths as reported by the study:

• My manager shares all the information my co-workers and I need in order to feel part of the health center team.
• I feel completely free to express my views to my manager.
• My manager holds everyone in our department accountable for their work.
• My manager gives me measurable goals to achieve.
• My manager does a good job of recognizing employee contributions.
• My manager is fair to all employees.

Glen has also received a number of unsolicited emails from members of the Senior Team passing on feedback from themselves and others. Here are some of their comments:

From the VP Finance: "Several Directors have spoken to me and state that this is the best education we have ever provided for them."

From the VP Nursing: "Just knowing and understanding what makes me and others "tick" is helping us work together better and respond to each other differently."

VP Support Services: “We are using the language we learn in the sessions. It's great to hear people talking about what we are learning back in the hospital. I am hearing this is the best education we have ever provided.”

Congratulations Glen! Your ability to take the material and relate it directly to your client’s needs, coupled with talent for getting buy-in at all levels has made a significant difference to the people both in the hospital and in the community of Shawnee OK.