Having the Bubble
While there was a time that healthcare leaders operated with enough political capital that they could treat quality as an incidental to how they used technology to make money and still survive the ugly stories and costs that came with not “have the bubble”, those days are quickly disappearing. It is witnessed in the growing trend of hospital CEOs whose leadership tenures are three years or less and the prevalence of stories about how many of these leaders lost their positions because of the financial or reputational damage done by something that the board thought he or she should have been in control of but wasn’t because he or she did not “have the bubble”. Leaders “have the bubble” when they have a deep enough knowledge of how their businesses run and the outcomes they produce (both good and bad) that they can foster timely enough action that their processes and systems for quality management, financial performance and accountability can effectively manage, protect, fortify and improve what creates financial, operational and reputational success. For the Navy, it is something that happens when the captain of a ship knows at all times, because of the information that is always available to him or her, that the vessel he or she is commanding is always ready for action.
In health care, after fifty years of slow and insidious decline created by too many business choices that have not been made in ways that managed money and quality like they are two sides of the same coin so the money worked, the compounding financial damage being done to the average provider of care is now big enough that an ever growing number of them are ceasing to exist. Because leaders are not operating with a deep enough knowledge of how well their organizations are doing in protecting their patients, workforce, organization and business practices from financial and personal harm, both leaders and the organizations they lead are becoming victims of the very technologically-advancing environment that creates their opportunities. It is the inability of these leaders to manage to the “1” in the 1:10:100 Rule and do it in financially smart ways while being caught off-guard too frequently because by design their quality programs do not support “having the bubble” that is taking our healthcare organizations down and causing too many key people to pay the professional price that comes with managing way too many things to the “100”.
Central to what makes SQSS such a powerful leadership tool is the kind of real time access to performance data that it allows leaders to have through a number of at-a-glance reports, both standardized for managing the basics and customized to manage business-focused needs. Updating as fast as any work gets done in the System, SQSS is designed to help leaders “have the bubble” for how well their organizations are doing in managing the thousands of defenses and activities it takes to hold the line and ensure optimal outcomes. Similar to the way the captain of a Navy ship can walk to a wall on the bridge to determine “at-a-glance” its readiness for action, SQSS allow a healthcare leader to know with just a few simple clicks just how well his or her people are doing in managing variables important to patient safety and cost control. While that leader may not get directly involved in managing specific activities, he or she can have a deep enough knowledge to create the accountability that it takes to have his or her people to get it right the first time.