BUS603: Managing People

As healthcare has changed drastically over the past 20 years, the correlations and similarities between business and healthcare have only increased. One such area that is similar in both business and healthcare systems is the satisfaction of the consumer or patient. In business the satisfaction of the consumer leads to a relationship of continual purchases and loyalty, in healthcare, satisfaction of the patient leads to referrals of other patients, additional medical services and more effective community outreach.

As businesses constantly aspire to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, so do healthcare systems and public health institutions. While it might be hard to ascertain, it is in the best interest of healthcare systems or public health institutions to implement strategies that will foster an edge against other systems, or in public health institutions, a better network to facilitate protocols and community outreach.

One such way that healthcare systems and public health institutions can create an edge is through differentiation. This is very similar to the strategy first devised from Michael Porter. This strategy, created in business, says that for sustainable growth, an organization must either work to be a cost leader or differentiate themselves from their competition. While cost leadership might not be a tool at the disposal of healthcare systems, differentiation is. Most healthcare systems have started to find that their best chance at differentiation is through their people and the leadership they implement. In fact, Dr. Mark Britnell of KPMG recently wrote "that a typical (healthcare) organization can become around 15 percent more efficient purely through operational, administrative and workforce improvements". Scaled up to a global level, this suggests that the prize of better managed healthcare services may be in the order of one trillion dollars.

While my experience in healthcare systems and public health institutions is relatively limited, my current employer has several longstanding contracts with these types of organizations. These longstanding contracts have afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with several leaders of local healthcare systems and public health institutions. As I have been in my role for six years, I have witnessed the healthcare landscape change and profit margins become a more and more important metric. While discussing the business models of these leaders, I learned that to be different in a crowded segment, you have to find your niche and run with it (which is very similar to what my business organization does). As David Blom, CEO of Ohiohealth mentioned in an interview from 2016, their advantage is leadership. Below is an excerpt from that interview:

Q: If you could teleport back in time and counsel yourself, what lessons from now would you impart?

Blom: If there's one thing I wish I had learned earlier in my career, its leadership. I never had a leadership course in high school, college, or even in graduate school. Had I understood leadership more clearly earlier in my career, I could have avoided a lot of mistakes.

Q: Speaking of leadership, you talk about focusing on "hands, heads, and hearts". Can you explain that philosophy?

Blom: First I consider, do I have the hands to do the job? You've got to recruit the right people, those who have the values, competence, and character you want. As far as heads, we do a lot of work to explain what we're doing and why. There are no strategic secrets in the organization. Then you also need to light people up, and you do that with their hearts.
If you get all three of those things, it's something really special.