Comments on: It’s All About Transformation

By: Diabetes information

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By: Are health care providers too task oriented? « Health Care 300

Are health care providers too task oriented? « Health Care 300 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:27:26 +0000

[...] other day I read a great post by Nick Jacobs on his blog site that discussed the notion of transformation, in which Nick describes how the light went on for him. Patients right now look at health care [...]

By: Mark Tomaszewicz

Mark Tomaszewicz — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:45:34 +0000

Nick, I enjoyed your talk at the conference. You are a great storyteller.

Mike, sometimes the best way to teach people to stage a transforming experience is to immerse them in one themselves. So, to extend Nick’s message, how are hospitals helping to transform employees? Health care is powerful vocation that should be inspirational and transformative for clinicians and staff, often times, that is not the case.

By: mobihealthnews » Blog Archive » Round-up: Telemonitoring Diabetes; VISA; JAMA

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:47:45 +0000

[...] the importance of recognizing patients are looking for a transformational [...]

By: Nick Jacobs

Nick Jacobs — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:49:51 +0000

Well, Mike, the idea behind my post was to challenge my former peers to begin to position the aspects of the health care business that can be appropriately positioned to teach, explain, and help convince the patient that their participation could lead to absolute, total transformation.

Lots of people who went to college weren’t transformed either, but it’s the concept of transformation that is so appealing to me.

Do you want open heart surgery, or do you want your life to change so dramatically that you will not be faced with collapsed arteries, blocked bypasses, and widow makers again?

Of course some of this is a dream, but, unlike those individuals who take everything literally, I just think that if we could get the clinician behind this idea, not only could patient lives change but also the lives of the health care professionals who serve those patients. It puts complete meaning back into the job. As a former teacher, I’d rather think of those lives that I helped to transform than those who just got through without commitment.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:22:02 +0000

Great post Mr. Nick. Your post is already getting my brain chewing on this thought, but as Carl mentions above this may not be so easy to do with health care – not impossible, but difficult. I agree that patients see health care much more as a service than as an opportunity to “transform” themselves. Even in the face of the obvious like the asthmatic or COPDer that continues to smoke when they know how bad it is for them they come to us to make them breath better so they can go home and smoke.

Probably hard to get this concept to work in my setting – an ER but I need to think about it to see how to use this idea – which I like by the way.

My question for you and CEO folks in health care like you is how would you go about developing a hospital culture that transforms patients? That would be a presentation I would come and see and sit in the front row for.

By: Keith Morgridge

Keith Morgridge — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:16:49 +0000

Great topic and thanks for pointing me to it. A hospital I have had interactions with is trying to raise funds for a new facility and it dawned on them that their message in the community was not inspiring donations – what you have pointed out and they have not realized is they are focused on the the services they offer – not the transformation their work brings to their lives of the people in the community they serve.

Another point – this is also a great motivation tool for front line staff – how their work and effort transforms the lives of the patients/customers they interact with each day.

By: Ellen

Ellen — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:20:13 +0000

I’d like to make note that the patient who comes to the psychiatrist, in my experience, comes most often for transformation via medication and hoping for miraculous speedy results, not for the experience. I believe Community Mental Health typically strives to engage the patient to enter into a transformational experience beyond the psychiatrist, and often does that. However, there is a Catch 22 with hospitalization. Loyalty is not encouraged, recidivism is not a goal, and although patients’ inpatient hospitalization experience may be transformational and they may develop loyalty, should they return again and again (which they do) because they favor one hospital’s care over another (and many try them all) they ultimately may face a less than welcoming and sometimes even closed door. Behavioral health unit staff bedside manner is complicated, to say the least.

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:55:30 +0000

Very interesting topic. One thing that strikes me is the difference between healthcare and other services. When we talk of transformation for another service, the goal is an outcome that is wanted. When we talk about a transformation in healthcare, the goal is not always welcome. Even though better health is the final goal, a diet, exercise, taking medication 2-4 times a day, cutting out drinking, smoking, etc., these transformations are not always welcome. It can be difficult to convice patients that their lives will be better after the interventions of healthcare providers.