Category — Healthcare

What’s wrong with healthcare today?

We hear this relentlessly as if it’s proven that our healthcare system is in catastrophic collapse.

What’s wrong with this view?

It assumes only one side matters: it views healthcare solely as an allocation problem.

Well … demands on public resources always outstrip supply … and allocation debates are what politics is all about.

No matter what your position on the ideology, politics or policies of healthcare, the simple fact, it seems to me, is that we are getting better healthcare than critics claim.

In the last year, I’ve done several sets of focus groups with front-line healthcare workers from acute, community, and mental health, including nursing and non-nursing care and support staff.

Front-line people provide the service.

It is unspoken but front-line people are increasingly expected to function as self-directing professionals in a self-regulating environment. And mostly, they do. They are dedicated and committed to contribution to positive patient outcomes, But the stresses are showing; constantly being asked to do more with less, often with little recognition or support, often unsupervised and frequently barely managed.

If you are a manager in healthcare, there are consequences. Productivity of your front-line people is critical.

That means building on their strengths.

That means listening to and understanding your people.

It’s up to you … but I can help.

The first message you give to your people by doing focus groups with them is that you care, and you are listening.