Courtesy of The Institute for Healthcare Excellence's Dr. William Maples & Jennifer Krippner, below is a transcript of his speaking session on 'What core skills are necessary to help your organization realize the optimal experience culture you aspire to?' to Build a Thriving Enterprise that took place at the Customer Experience Excellence Virtual Conference.

Session Information:

CX- The Last True Differentiator

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Understand the importance of effective healthcare provider communication in creating a culture of excellence for our patients and fellow caregivers.
• Learn, understand, and practice mindfulness/presence and its application in a healthcare setting.
• Demonstrate communication techniques useful in building patient and team-based relationships.
• Learn, understand, and practice skills to effectively and efficiently gather accurate information and jointly set an agenda.
• Understand benefits and practice the skill of Appreciation.

Session Transcript:

To introduce you to doctor Bill maples, Jennifer Kerchner, kidner from the Institute of Healthcare Excellence.

And doctor maples is the founder, President and CEO of the Institute for Health, A national organization supporting care redesign, a cultural transformation, and the delivery systems across the United States.

Doctor Maples earned his undergraduate Master in Ecology and Medical Degrees at the University of Wisconsin, madison and completed his residency and fellowship at Medical Oncology at the Mayo Clinic, Graduate School of Medicine, Very impressive.

His practice medical oncology for 25 years at Mayo Clinic and help lead the Mayo Clinic, Quality, Safety, and Experience During, after which he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer, Admission Health in Asheville, North Carolina. Our mission.

Navigation: A, cultural transformation, and Become a top ranked US.

health system recognized for its incredible quality and Safety. Welcome, Bill.

And, next, we have Jennifer.

Chief Experience Officer.

Jennifer is a fierce advocate for connecting people, concepts, seen and unseen, positively, movie the patient and employee experience for her ability to inspire and lead and manage and mentor employees provides.

And providers are, an impact or community made are the perfect candidate and Chief Experience Officer at the Institute Healthcare Excellence.

Jennifer is a graduate from the saint Benedict in Minnesota, with a Bachelor's degree and level studies for communication.

Welcome, Bill and Jennifer.

I'll hand it over to you now.

Thanks, Jim.

Yeah.

Well, Jennifer and I are delighted to, to spend some time with you this morning to reflect on this question, which is the title of our talk, What core skills are necessary to actually help your organization realize the optimal experience culture that you aspire to?

And we're going to be sharing our thoughts from working in healthcare, but I believe that so many of the concepts that we're talking about extend to any type of organization that you're, you're really striving to create that optimal culture.

Um, next slide, Jennifer.

So just briefly, you know, by the end of our half hour together, we hope to touch on the importance of effective communication and creating a culture.

So a lot packaged in there, this is about creating a culture. It isn't about a checklist of this best practice or this best practice, or you should do this.

This is how do you really move the culture?

What lever is what communication levers are really the most important in building that culture and building relationships.

And then we'll have a little bit of time to experience some of the approaches to effectively gather information and jointly set an agenda, and why that's important, as well as practice the skill of appreciation and gratitude, which is one of the most important levers in creating the culture that we're talking about.

Next slide.

Um, one key point from today's discussion is that if you continue to do things the way that you have been doing them, chasing best practices, and trying to implement tactical initiatives to move patient experience, you're likely going to have minimal success.

This just shows the health care journey from 2007 through 2019, spending billions of dollars and creating optimal patient experience across the country. And, yes, we've improved, But the degree of improvement and the ability to sustain that improvement has been very, very, very less than satisfactory.

And at least from my view.

And so, again, if we continue to work on tactical initiatives, do this best practice, this best practice, we'll likely see the same results. Next slide.

We have another challenge and, and particularly in health care. and that is the challenge of caregiver burnout.

And you can see the blue line on the left side of the graph, shows that the burnout, actually, up until mid 2000, like the 2015 time, was actually rising.

And going into the coronavirus pandemic, about 40 to 45% of the health care team was showing up to work emotionally exhausted and some degree of burnout higher than the normal populate. The rest of the population.

Consequences of the burnout in the, in the healthcare arena include this patient satisfaction problem.

So we've got, we've got a significant weight, pulling us back with this burnout, trying to create the optimal culture, and then there's a whole variety of other quality and safety measures, infections, medical errors, medication, medication errors, and even mortality rates.

Do patients leave our system alive or not connected to this problem of burnout?

I mentioned that with pre pandemic next slide.

The problem is even greater post pandemic.

At the present time, approximately 60% of physicians in this country are experiencing some degree of emotional exhaustion.

And when we then think about nurses, it's as high as 70% with the consequences of high turnover rates and and really problems meeting the the health care needs of our nation.

So we've got that problem in terms of creating this optimal culture to think about as well. Next slide.

So, our are, when we think about what we really want to do, we would like to really score the quadruple aim, which includes patient centered care, delivering high quality, at with efficiency, at a at a, at a the lowest cost possible.

But the the fourth aim here is to be certain, that whatever we do, we put some joy back into the practice of medicine. And if you're not in medicine, joy, back into whatever your team is working on for your mission. Next slide.

So, when we think about that journey, that culture that we need to create, we know what we want to do, and every organization that we've had the privilege of working with, has no problem putting up a nice chart in the board room of really what they want: Patient safety, high quality care, patient satisfaction.

You know, we want to be certain, we, we, we do, We go across the continuum of care, from before they enter the health system to after, so that we truly work on the overall health of the community, lower costs, and engage physicians.

Next slide, please.

We've all tried all of the things in the literature that really tell us, this is what you should do to actually get to that endpoint on the right.

They're all great things, but they are not sufficient to actually drive, drive us to reach that. Our goals on the right. So, next slide. So, what's missing?

What do we need to do to actually help cultivate those things that we do in the middle there to truly come to fruition?

And that's what we'd like to spend a few minutes up. Next slide.

Um, George X, really, with a very, pretty simple formula.

I think, if you think about what, what your organization really needs to accomplish, your self improvement is equal to the technical capabilities, multiplied by the cultural capabilities.

And I know in healthcare, we've spent a lot of time and money and effort on the technical capabilities.

We talk about working on the cultural capabilities, but the interventions and the true initiative spent unmoving culture.

It's a little bit softer. It's a little bit more elusive. So oftentimes, we don't spend that much time.

And I think, the last time I went to school, anything times 0 is 0, or close to 0 is 0. So, that ability to achieve that improvement, back to that first slide I showed you, gee, we've worked so hard, But we haven't really, really, really improve that much.

Is it really linked to moving this cultural side of the equation? Next slide.

Um, and when we think about where we want to go, I mentioned that we're again, we're at about 60% at burnout, and burnout, at its core is the impaired ability for an individual or a team, to experience any positive emotions in the work that they're doing throughout the day.

And we want to go from being burnt out to not only having zero burn out but to truly be thriving.

I really, really, really feel like I'm making a meaningful this difference. I really look forward to come into work. I really think, our team is, is really working at peak performance.

And to get to that thriving piece, that, at its core, the ability to cultivate positive emotions in small doses frequently throughout the entire work day.

That's how we need to actually move that cultural piece of the equation. Next slide.

What positive emotions are we talking about? We're talking about all of those in the middle, joy, hope, gratitude, inspiration.

All these things are in front of us Every day, every encounter, We have to tap into them. Because when we do, it gives us a little tiny engine to keep moving that extra effort.

And it also does any negative things that may have happened an hour before, a day before, things that might be dragging us down. Next slide.

So we're going to spend the, our time focusing.

There's a list here of things that we can do as leaders, as well as the caregiver team to really tap into those positive emotions and create the culture.

We're going to need you to focus on three of them: recognizing emotional, responding appropriately. How do you do it? best? That sounds easy, but it's, it's really key.

How do you really gather information in and jointly set an agenda? And then last, how do we really implement the skill of appreciation and gratitude into our, our daily work? So I'll turn this over to Jennifer to tackle, recognizing emotion and responding appropriately.

Great. Thank you, doctor Maples Recognizing emotion responding with what we call is Relations, and I'm gonna walk you through that, and, as you think about that, in the back of your head. Just think through some examples, when you have encountered other people, situations, where perhaps it had been, maybe a difficult conversation, or point of tension, in a, in A, in a conversation, or relationship. So, relations, here's what relation stands for? Respect: Empathy.

Legitimization, apology, trust, integrity, openness, naming, and support and I'll walk through an example of each one for you.

So, when we think about respect, but really think about demonstrating appreciation for a patient or a colleague, another person's choices, behaviors, special qualities of different phrases that you can think about, where could be you've worked hard on this, or that was tough. You handled it. Well, really showing that respect for that other person.

Empathy.

Another really true, truly powerful form of showing respect can be understanding the person's feelings, and being able to communicate that understanding to that, that person, ways that you can show empathy are really listening re reflectively. So being present and listening to that person, attempting to understand, or walking a mile in that person's shoes, and then being able to express your understanding of how that person feels dating.

Boy, that's what's harder. That must be difficult for you, or let me see if I have this right, by kind of explaining or listening, Reflecting back what you've heard them say.

I'm just demonstrating that you're understanding where they're coming from.

Legitimization. This is a powerful micro scale that you can use by concurring that that patients, feelings or choices are appropriate, such as anyone could be confused by this situation. So you're really to legitimizing what they're feeling at that moment.

Apology, so taking personal responsibility and apologizing when appropriate. So perhaps saying, I'm sorry, we can't get to everything, today or tomorrow. Let's try to, try to tackle this. When we can. Or, I'm sorry, I was late or, I'm sorry This process is taking too long. Apology can go a long way in really defusing. A certain situation.

Very powerful statement there.

Trust. So here's another one. We must build trust to help our patients or families or colleagues feel safe and confident that we have their best interest at heart. So being authentic and being transparent, really developing that common vision and mission with your patient or colleague, such as you, and I share a common goal. We really have the best interest of whatever situation. At heart here, so let's work on this together.

Integrity, integrity is more, really choosing thoughts and actions based on values.

But, rather than on personal gain, doing the right thing when, no, it's, no one is looking count. You can count on me to follow through on that conversation, or our team commits to be transparent and truthful with one another.

T here.

Openness remain open to understanding the complete story when communicating. So first being present, and then being curious. And approaching that conversation, without any judgement, really trying to seek to understand. And you can use phrases such as, Tell me More, or what else may be happening, and tell me more about the situation.

So just really being open to learning more.

And then naming such a powerful way to really recognizing what emotion that person is feeling. And then naming it.

So expressing, in words, what you're noticing. And again, remaining that non-judgemental attitude. Allowing the other person to name the emotion. By stating, I'm sensing you'll be, may be angry about this, or, many people in your situation have been angry, or nervous, or upset about this. By naming it, that person might then say, No, I'm not angry about it. I'm really frustrated. So you're allowing them to actually name for themselves. And it can be really powerful for them, helps them open up, and really have begin the dialog that needs to happen.

Then, support, offer ongoing personal support and partnership. So, let's tackle this together, or, I'll stick with you as long as necessary, and I'll be here when and if you need me.

And when we do this, and when we have a better conversation. Using some of these skills, our patients, our colleague feels Alliance and safety and Trust were better. And have a stronger relationship to cope with illness and stress, and we were better satisfied with that successful connection.

And so, we provide this as a framework for you, as a foundational set of tools and a language to really have the best conversation possible that you could have. And so now, I'm going to ask you to get out a pen and a paper, and we're going to do a little practice here, using this tool of Relations. By recognizing emotion and responding with this relations.

And so I'd like you to think about a scenario in which relations would help you navigate a certain tension or emotion in a helpful way.

So, think of a time where you potentially had in the past or potentially have in the future, a conversation where you had a difficult conversation or point of tension. Just jot down, perhaps what that was. What kind of conversation did you have?

Um, I, in the past had had a conversation with two employees that were vying for a promotion, and one of them didn't get it, and was upset about it, and had come into my office for, for a second conversation, and I knew she was kind of upset.

And so, I used these micro skills, you know, knowing that she was going to come with some emotion to help me. So, that was my scenarios. So that's what I would write down in this box.

So, I'm going to just give you a moment, write down your scenario.

Because the next slide, we're going to ask you to use the skills.

So, if you have a scenario, I'm gonna move to the next slide. Here's a recap of the relation statements.

So, I have those on the left-hand side of the screen, and now what I'd like you to do.

It uses many relations in 2 to 3 sentences.

And you can use, decided to use it as a text or an e-mail. Or, perhaps, if you're in the clinical setting in an inbox message to diffuse whatever that situation was that we just talked about. Or, it could be a letter that you'd like to send, or one that you'd like to just write down, and call that person, or, for that next meeting. But we'd like to also say that you can use these in written format to not just when you're in a meeting or are having a conversation.

So I'm going to give you a minute or so to write down what your 2 to 3 sentence message would be to the scenario that we just talked about.

All right, I hope you found that was helpful. Many other people have used this skill, and practice, using relations in a difficult conversation, using. It really helps decrease that tension, in a conversation. Also, by connecting to emotion and, in a deeper way, really helps break down the barriers, and helps build trust.

Interrelationships, by, really, truly recognizing that emotion, coming into that conversation, using some of those supportive statements.

Such as legitimization or naming the emotion, using empathy and support. Building that trust really can assist you in having the best conversation possible, may not fix the conversation, at the moment, that it can set you up to have a better conversation in the future, as well. It really helps build that trust in beginning those conversations.

So how can you practice this tomorrow? one is just be more present. Notice when emotions are attention, failed, and try to respond by maybe just using the naming in the relations, Just try using one of them, or practice using 2 or 3 of them tomorrow. You could write down another scenario and practice using them in written form, or you could pull a co-worker aside and prepare for a conversation, Use them as practice. When we do this, when we do recognize those emotions and when we can practice using the scale of relations, were able to better connect to positive emotions through those Through the throughout the day.

When doctor Maple said, connecting to positive emotions and small frequent doses throughout the day, it does help us in preparing better for connecting to those part of positive emotions connects better to our well-being. It helps us because, you know, better resilience. It gets us out of that negative space. And so we invite you to practice this throughout your day. And just remember that you don't have to use all of them. You can just use 1 or 2. And we really hope you enjoyed this skills practice.

And I'm going to turn it back over to doctor maples.

Thanks, Jennifer.

Could have the next slide.

So I just wanted to spend just a few minutes on the power of how we gather information and that can be in the healthcare arena for a patient in, in any other situation, to a colleague, to a client.

How do we gather that information and then couple that with how do we jointly set an agenda in terms of what we're going to do?

Next slide, So when we think about this, what we typically, one on me, are gathering information. We hear a problem, we hear a situation and we immediately want to go into fix that situation.

So one of the concepts I just want to introduce and have you kind of wrestle with today is, rather than hearing a problem and going right down the rabbit hole on the Alice In Wonderland rabbit hole there, rather think about how you're gathering that information as skipping a stone across the lake across a wide body of water.

You want to skip it as many times as you want before you go down into the rabbit hole.

At some point, you'll want to get more information in detail.

But hold back and let the person that you're having a conversation with, talk and really share what is on his or her mind, what what things really they would like to really talk about. It will really open the conversation, and really help everybody use time efficiently.

Next slide.

Once you actually get the whole list on the table, and everybody's concerned about take a long time, that's been studied. If you just really don't interrupt and let people share what they're concerned about, they, on average, finish within one minute, rarely, go over three minutes.

But once you have that information, then what do you do with it.

And another concept I just want to leave you with today is to think about changing the way that you approach that next part of the conversation.

We often hear this is what's bothering me about this, this, or this.

And we go right into the again that fix that mode when we're, we're trying to fix all of the problems.

And we don't pause and say, out of all of those things, what matters to you? What's most important to you?

So shifting from what's the matter with you, to what matters to you.

And really allowing that part of the conversation to be fleshed out will will have significant benefit in creating the sense of trust and relationship. Next slide.

When you do these two skills together, you really open the space for listening. And remember, I mentioned, you're gathering that list, and skipping the stone without interrupting.

You're building trust the person across. You actually says, Gee, this, this person cares about me, cares what I really have to say.

It allows everybody's voice to be heard and valued, and it in the end, everybody is worried that's going to take too long, but you actually are more efficient when you prioritize what matters most.

And most importantly, when you do that, you have somebody that is bought in to whatever you're going. The recommendations are going to be, they're likely to follow through and be a partner on the team more.

All of these things listed on the slide, let's name trust.

Feeling heard, taps into those positive emotions in small doses frequently if you really approach your conversations in this manner. So a couple concepts just on, how do we really gather information and jointly set the agenda, I'm gonna turn this back to Jennifer to take us into our last skill.

Thank you.

So last skill is a gratitude and appreciation of power for powerful skill. And we're gonna walk through and have some more questions for you and an activity.

So think of a time when you notice something good happened, and I'd like you to go a little bit deeper and think about what was your role in making that happened.

And then what positive emotion did you experience?

And so here's an example: We're gonna walk through an activity cut, three good things.

And here's an example. one person wrote down, So what? What did they noticed that went well today? They wrote down my five year old swam across the pool at the YMCA without any float ease for the first time.

So what was your role in making that happen? They actively supported their child in that activity and the positive emotion that they felt was pride.

Another one was watching the sunset. They took time out of their schedule, and they, they felt awe.

The other one, just simple making their wife laughs so hard, her eyes watered. Their role was making their wife laugh and then amusement.

So not large, big things that they had to notice, but just smart. It could be small, everyday things. So with your pen and paper, again, I'd like you to think about, over the last 24, 48 hours, three good things that happened, and I have the positive emotions listed at the bottom of the screen. So amusement gratitude, inspiration, interest. Joy hope love, pride and serenity.

You think about, what went well, what was your role, and then a positive emotion that happened? If you want to just jot down 1, 2, or three things, we'll just give you a few moments to do that.

Thinking back about what went well. Anything new noticed, appreciation, or gratitude for things that happened in the last day or so.

Then writing what your role was and making that happen.

And then, don't forget to notice what positive emotion that you felt during that good thing.

And as you think about, those three good things.

Like to talk a little bit about why we, why we do this exercise in this activity.

It's because when you think about at the end of the day, when you're driving home from work or closing your workday out, we, we typically don't think about, oh, boy, that meeting went really well.

Or that interaction went really well, or that, you know, patient that I took care of. I did all those things really, really well. We're really hard wired to remember the negative things, right. We think about the things that didn't go well. So having this practice of three good things help us to really require our thought processes of how to think about the things that didn't go well, we'd like you to practice this two hours before you go to sleep. Because we have a better enhanced recall of material during the last wakeful hours. So as we think about practicing this for the next seven days.

We'd like you to do this before bed.

And then also you'll you'll notice that maybe it's difficult to think about three good things. Maybe one is, it's easier than three. But with practice, by day or 4 or 5, I'm reflecting on the positive leads to noticing more positive. So by day 4 or 5, you'll start to notice more positive things throughout your day and you'll start to kind of undo those hard wired negative thoughts throughout the day.

You'll start to be able to notice more good things that happen throughout the day.

I'd like to share a study with you in the Big BMJ Open that doctor Brian Sexton and Katherine Adair did the three good things study.

They did a baseline test, and then they tested at one month, six months, and 12 months later, just by doing the three good things for seven days. This was done in 20 19. It's been a repeated study for many years, and the impact is so impressive. So your baseline happiness, burnout problems with work-life balance, and depression, your happiness.

At baseline, and at 12 months, it has increased and stays. Impacted that long. Your burnout is decreased. Your problems with work-life balance decreases, and your depression decreases, and stays decreased.

So by just writing down three good things, notice senior role, Attach enough positive emotion to it has a great impact, And by doing this for seven days in a row, one time a week can have this lasting impact.

And so we talk about the lasting impact of gratitude and unhappiness.

It also connects our heart and deepens our emotions.

So we're able to really think a little bit differently from a positive aspect about how is what I'm doing my role in doing that. Connecting to that positive emotion that we talked about.

It also opens up more space for vulnerability, like, what am I doing throughout my day that's really helping to, to connect to those positive emotions?

Then it provides an expanded emphasis on giving ...

that discretionary effort that impact of gratitude and appreciation enhance on ourselves and on others.

So what will you do tomorrow? Would you join us in beginning your seven day, three good things practice? Can you invite your team, your family, your friends, to join you? And notice how being present and open to the positive aspects of your life can impact your well-being.

And we really hope that you can find this practice, and fun and enjoyable, and really see the benefits of connecting to those positive emotions by this practice. three good things.

Would you like to add anything? doctor maples, before I turn it back to you?

No, I think we're good, OK.

So, just in closing here, we had a chance to introduce at least the initial introduction to connecting with relations, had a brief discussion about how we gather information in, and jointly set an agenda, skipping the stone, and switching that conversation to what matters to you, rather than what's the matter. And then, last, this powerful skill of appreciation.

There are other skills around this circle here that we did not touch on today, but each of those are the important, critical levers.

When we talk about changing the culture of the organization that we work in, by pulling these levers, we will actually move that culture and fill in that question, Mark, what's missing from earlier in the presentation?

Next slide.

These are the six skills that are in the center here. What we have actually demonstrated and measured are the following. Enhanced emotional intelligence, Our teamwork goes up, The teamwork culture. Climate goes up.

Depressive symptoms decreased. Jennifer just went over some data from that and just from the three good things alone reconnecting to purpose. That was all happened.

Then we talk about connecting with patients and connecting with each other on our team.

Again, in the healthcare setting, it's the patient and our team.

Whatever setting you have, you truly want to connect to your team members, as well as your clients.

Next slide, We want to do that with safety, efficiency, and enhanced outcomes, and all of these metrics are actually move in the right direction by actually pulling those levers using those six skills effectively in the center there.

And then, lastly, we really want to drive compassion and empathy in ourselves, as well, as the entire team improves.

Engagement, builds trust. And, overall, we leave the end of each day with a good tire, rather than a bad hire.

So that's the those, that's the acuity are there to answer the question.

What is it that we need to do to truly drive that culture, and, and it sits right in front of you.

Next slide.

I know we've gone over things quickly, and have you had a little bit of a taste. If you're looking to learn more, I'd like to learn more than happy, to really have further conversations with you and try to deepen the understanding of how this process actually can work.

We really appreciate your time, and love to answer any questions that you may have.

Fantastic presentation, doctor Medical's and Jennifer.

Fantastic, loved it.

We have a few questions coming in. Thanks, the audience.

There's one question here that says, Join agenda. Are you suggesting that this can be termed or termed a voice of the customer?

And, does the list include what is the meaning of the value add from the customer's perspective, or point of view?

Yeah, so, second part the, you know, the value add It Absolutely does touch on that, because if we just give space to have the customer, say What?

answer that question, What matters to you? You will get value add from that. They're not going to choose something that won't give value add to them.

That the key There is, is that it might not be the same value add to me.

But if it really is their highest priority, they have other reasons of really why that is important to them, and clearly fits into their value add equation. And, Jim, the first part of the question. Can you just just repeat it quickly, so I can?

Jennifer?

join agenda.

Are you suggesting this can be termed as voice or the customer?

Voice of the customer? OK, Jennifer, do want to take that?

Yeah. I think the joint agenda, there's a key piece there that says joint. So, yes, it is voice of the customer, and it is the voice of the other person as well, because it is joint. We want to make sure both voices are heard equally.

Excellent, excellent.

Another question here.

They said, maybe I missed the point connection of using the three good things to customer experience excellence.

That's this question.

Yes, so, using the three good things is using the power of appreciation and gratitude And when we do that, we tap into those positive emotions that fuels our well-being, and when we have the, the when we experience well-being increases, our happiness decreases, our depression of gets us out of that burnout space. We're able to better connect with one another. We're able to better provide care to our patients and families were banned. We're better off being a better team member and all those things that doctor Maple set around the wheel at that last slide because to deliver upon.

Yeah, just just add on that. If you remember way in the beginning of the presentation, so it's a great question, how does this all connect? It's critical. There is no possible way that you can actually deliver, deliver the optimal patient experience or customer experience.

If you or your team members are showing up to work in a negative space and a burnt out space, it is simply not possible.

You will drive. You will try to drive all that experience in the right direction and it'll come out to a great, big roadblock. And so, it's critical, critical, critical, that we truly help ourselves and our team members get into that space, that is going to allow us to really deliver the optimal experience.

Great. Great.

And I think there's a follow up question, is pertaining to voice to the business, and voice of the customer.

And maybe a little differentiation, and how these tools and techniques work, and both be talking about voice of the customer versus the business.

What's your perspective on that?

I'll just share in the general for you, may want to add to that site. I think it gets back to what, Jennifer?

So, but this is joint.

This is really about, yes, we need the voice of the customer.

And oftentimes, we, we miss that.

We need the voice of the business as well. And then we have to have a negotiation of really what are we going to do and how are we going to tackle this?

So often in healthcare it's the voice of the doctor or the voice of the nurse that dwarfs the voice of the patient.

And so, when we have this conversation, which I think the question is getting at with our health care teams, often, they think, oh, this is just about the voice of the patient, what about our work?

And it's absolutely critically important, and, in some ways, more important.

But you have to have a conversation about why you're going to do X, Y, or Z in the context of what's important to the other person, and that's the piece that we miss, We typically, often, those conversations are really the mass balance. And that, that would be my response, Jennifer, give anything else.

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point about kind of having that balanced conversation, where both parties are heard and valued, and then you can negotiate what you're going to work on at that moment.

What matters most?

I think the risk of that to Jim, is this: if we don't have somewhat better a better balance, what happens in the healthcare arena, is that we have patients that leave, and then they don't follow through, and they come back, and we label them as non compliant patients.

Well, they're compliant with the plan that they bought into, but they never had a chance to, really, be part of the plan that they brought into, and it happens over, and over, and over again.

And so I would, I would think the same sort of thing happens in the other non healthcare business world as well.

Yeah, there are a little bit of empathy.

Maybe, those, a little ways to put yourself in the other shoes Were so cutoff to get our work done, that we may not actually understand or take the time to understand, do they really get it and internalize it?

Oh, I think we have time for one quick question.

Around leadership often assumes that physicians, nurses, and health care team members inherently have these skills, How do you address the situation where leadership may not be convinced that this is necessary?

This is an age old challenge. Millimeter, Jennifer, you want to take that last one? Yeah, it is a great question.

And, I think a lot of times, um, no, leaders assume either, their team members have the skills, right, likely think that they do, and, um, they just skip over it, right.

And just assume that, that your teams are moving through the day to day.

And, I think it's, it's, when you have the leaders that are in tune with their teams and connected to their teams, that they really can see where those gaps are and that that's the important leadership team that can really say, we really need to invest in our teams.

And in and jump on and help their teams really come to, um, get the skills that are needed. I don't know doctor maple sweat, what would you say?

Yeah, I think it is a, it's a challenging conversation, but I think if you're wanting to have that conversation, just remember the slide really showing the trajectory of improvement that we've had over the last 15 to 20 years.

And we have leaders have started in the middle of that column with all the evidenced based initiatives.

Simply, they are not working.

And if not, because those are wrong, We just don't have the core skills necessary to execute and have those happen. So that's the type of conversation.

But I think we need to have it.

If we don't, we'll continue doing the same thing, and having the same result, And you and I will be here. God willing, 10 years, and we've had the same exact curve. So that's the conversation. It's a tough conversation, but best one that has to happen.

I agree with you, 100% from what I can say. We are getting better overall. So the good thing is slow, but sure.

Thank you so much, doctor Maples and Jennifer CRISPR.

Your fantastic presentation, very enlightening.

And, uh, you know, you made it real, which was really special.

So thank you so much for today and look forward to many more insights from you in the future.

Thank you. Thanks, and have a great day.

Conference, yeah, Thank you.

All right. Fantastic presentation by doctor maples and Jennifer.

Very enlightening.

We look forward to seeing you at the top of the hour, or will meet James Fellman on using CX journeys to improve operations and customer experience.

So we'll see you shortly at the top of the hour. Thank you.

About the Author

Dr. William Maples,
President and Chief Executive Officer,
The Institute for Healthcare Excellence.

William J. Maples, M.D. - Dr. Maples is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of the Institute for Healthcare Excellence, a national organization supporting care redesign and cultural transformation in delivery systems across the United States. 

Dr. Maples earned his undergraduate, Masters in Oncology, and medical degrees at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He completed his residency and fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. Dr. Maples practiced Medical Oncology for 25 years at Mayo Clinic and helped lead the Mayo Clinic's quality, safety, and experience journey.

He then served as Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer at Mission Health in Asheville, North Carolina where he helped Mission Health navigate cultural transformation and become a leading healthcare organization recognized for its impeccable quality and safety. Dr. Maples more recently served as Chief Medical Officer of Professional Research Consultants, Inc. Dr. Maples is an Associate Professor Emeritus of Oncology at the Mayo College of Medicine and a Clinical Professor at Brooks College of Health at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

About the Author

Jennifer Krippner,
Chief Experience Officer,
The Institute for Healthcare Excellence.

Jennifer is a fierce advocate for connecting things, concepts, and people, seen and unseen, that positively move the patient experience forward. Before joining The Institute for Healthcare Excellence in 2016,  her obsession with the voice of the patient and family helped several health systems in Minnesota achieve and sustain remarkable patient experience performance. Jennifer also worked to help organizations generate revenue, inspire engagement and drive positive change.

Jennifer, often described as a social chemist, believes that kindness and thoughtfulness is a key ingredient for creating meaningful relationships while still being focused on generating growth and loyalty for the organization. Her ability to lead, inspire, manage and mentor employees, providers and the community made her a perfect fit for Chief Experience Officer at the Institute for Healthcare Excellence.   While Jennifer takes great pride in her work, her true north remains her family, friends and relationships she develops. A graduate of the College of St. Benedict, she holds a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies/Communications.