This week’s Bloomberg Business Week magazine featured a phenomenal and very personal story of healthcare that actually captures many of the challenges around healthcare reform.  The author, Amanda Bennett, takes us on a journey that she has titled, “Lessons of a $618,616 Death.“  The true title, however, should have been, “How Do You Put A Price on 17 Months?”  In this article, Ms. Bennett takes us on the step-by-step, blow-by-blow journey that ended with her husband’s death.  She and a friend painfully reconstructed every page of his medical records, every dollar paid by her insurance companies, and every charge made by the various doctors and hospitals that treated him during the last years of his life.

Amanda Bennett and Terence Foley

She showed 1.) the grand total of charges, $618,616, 2.) the actual monies paid by the insurance companies to the hospitals after contractual negotiations, $254,176, and 3.) the total paid by her family, $9,468. In the article, she described the 30% overhead/administration costs, the costs of experimental drugs inside and outside of trials, and the 4,750 pages of medical records that were amassed during this time. For those of us who have “spent our time” trying to live within, cope with, and better understand America’s healthcare system, there were no surprises.  For those of us who have watched a loved one take this cancer journey with all of its mysterious unknowns, there were also no surprises. Ms. Bennett’s quote, “The system has a strong bias toward action,” was, I believe, the most poignant in the entire piece.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a very healthcare-savvy individual who, when I jokingly referred to death panels, almost came across the table at me.  She did not believe it was funny.  To say that she was passionate would miss the point.  Only the day before, I had spoken with another very intelligent healthcare reform advocate who indicated that the entire concept of death panels emanated from a payment code that reimbursed physicians for simply (or in some cases finally) talking to patients about their alternatives.  I had heard other explanations, but neither mattered.  What matters is that, in many instances, we are not discussing appropriate alternatives or revealing the quality-of-life issues often overlooked before beginning long courses of experimental drugs, or oncology drugs that may not have any positive impact on the health outcome of the individual.

Interestingly, Ms. Bennett did indicate that for all of the time, money, and pain invested in this journey, no one could confirm that her husband’s life was actually extended by these medical experiences.

Someone once described America’s healthcare system to me like this:  You walk into Nordstrom, order several three-thousand-dollar suits, a dozen shirts and some handmade, silk Italian ties, then turn to the person beside you and say to the clerk, ‘”He is paying for this.”  Our heroine Ms. Bennett did mention the fact that her husband would probably have questioned the use of all of these funds in this manner and the relationship that these expenditures might have had on all of the other people in the world who might have been helped by these dollars.

When healthcare reform is discussed, it is personal.  It is also deep, and it is costly, but the bottom line always comes back to this: “How do you put a price on 17 months?”  In my book Taking the Hell out of Healthcare, I discuss the journey that my father and our neighbor took together over about a 17 month period.  Both diagnosed with lung cancer, my father decided to go for it all.  He had surgery, chemo, radiation, more radiation, and more chemo.  My neighbor, a man without significant health insurance coverage, decided to spend his time with his family.  They both died on the same day.  My father died in a cold, tertiary care hospital where no clergy was present, his family members were not all able to be there with him, and it was over.  In contrast, our neighbor died peacefully in his home, surrounded by his entire family.

Ms. Bennett did say that she was glad that she was not a bureaucrat having to deal with these issues.  Frankly, I wish that she was!

As we begin to emerge from the bottom of a V-shaped recession, we all pray that it does not evolve into a W-shaped recession. Having been a witness for the majority of this economic challenge rather than an officer in charge, I’ve observed several significant issues that have impacted the hospital industry.  They have included the downgrading of bonds, a serious lack of access to capital financing, cutbacks in elective surgeries and elective donations to our health care foundations,  All of which has resulted in a deep degree of uncertainty as to when  all of this will be over.

The fact that many of the economic practices that got us into this mess have still not been discontinued or are being reshaped into the newest version of the scam du jour does not bring peace of mind to the vast majority of us, a deeply concerned citizenry.  Add to that the billions and now trillions that we are committed to repay over the next several generations, and one has to wonder about the ability of our current political system to respond appropriately to these challenges.

Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders criticized Wall Street executives and board members in a way that most of us would liked to have expressed, but which only Buffet could articulate. This is because his comments are clearly supported by his business acumen and investment skills.  He broadsided the leadership of Wall Street for failing to control risk and for avoiding  what very clearly should have been the “severe” consequences of these failures.  He chastised the bankers in particular for designing and implementing their own industry’s doom and then piling the losses onto investors, while they themselves have managed to maintain lavish lifestyles.

“It has not been shareholders who have botched the operations of some of our country’s largest financial institutions,” Buffett wrote. “Yet they have borne the burden, with 90% or more of the value of their holdings wiped out in most cases of failure. Collectively, they have lost more than $500 billion in just the four largest financial fiascos of the last two years. To say these owners have been ‘bailed-out’ is to make a mockery of the term.”

“The CEOs and directors of the failed companies, however, have largely gone unscathed…Their fortunes may have been diminished by the disasters they oversaw, but they still live in grand style. It is the behavior of these CEOs and directors that needs to be changed: If their institutions and the country are harmed by their recklessness, they should pay a heavy price – one not reimbursable by the companies they’ve damaged nor by insurance.”

With his sentiments firmly ensconced in my mind, I have to wonder about the current rounds of outrageous health insurance increases perpetrated upon the customers of many of our largest and most profitable insurance companies.  As a hospital CEO, I learned very early on that no matter how low we held our charges, those savings would not be passed on to the patients because the middle man controlled this aspect of the “business.”  Incentives are completely upside down in the system at many levels, and the political commitment to truly work toward meaningful change seems not only misguided but also seriously uninformed.

Bottom line?  We need to be heard.  We need to work toward systems that make sense: protection from catastrophic financial situations brought on by major illnesses or accidents, primary care that truly helps the patient manage their health challenges at a reasonable cost, and a complete change from a sickness-based to a wellness-based reimbursement system that is not dependent upon the insurance companies for the decision making proposition.

Sometimes right is truly black and white, and until we embrace palliative care, incentivize individuals for taking care of themselves, and deal with tort reform, progress will be only a delusion.

U.S. Health Care Reform Timeline: 1910-2010

Click image above to view full-size, interactive timeline. (Will open in a new web browser window.)

The origin of the name of this blog, HealingHospitals.com came from decades of seeking a better way to transition an old model to a more meaningful, experiential approach to caring for people.  This would actually provide transformational experiences for the patients and their families in a more interactive and participatory way.  (HealingHospitals was named a top 50 hospital administration blog.)

In a recent conversation with a clinical psychologist, I learned that we generally become our habits or, in fact, our habits become us. Accordingly, to change, to grow, to transition and to flourish, we have to work very hard at changing those habits that are not benefiting us personally: over indulgence, negativity, low self-esteem, or whatever the issue(s) may be.

How does this apply to an organization?  Every organization that I have ever experienced has a distinct personality and, in its own way, habits, as well.  Sometimes the personality of the organization is imposed by its leaders, but usually there are layers and layers of practice that have become part of the culture of that organization; practices –for better or worse– that have accumulated over time.

My observations of numerous hospitals have also provided me with an understanding of the myriad of habits that no longer make sense in today’s world; habits still being embraced that literally produce negative results, and are not only insensitive to the needs of both the staff and the patients, but also are many times intellectually and emotionally caustic to all participants.  We’ve written several times about the disparaging nature of the “parent-to-child” management styles prevailing in many hospitals amongst staff, physicians, and administrators, but this is just the proverbial tip of this particular iceberg.

Many hospitals are wonderful examples of business models that flourished during the Industrial Revolution.  Employees still swipe time cards into time clocks, bells and pagers go off all day and all night; professionals poke and prod patients without any explanation.  How many times have you observed the 84-year-old being wheeled into a cold, uncarpeted hallway, parked near a wall with nothing to see, nothing to do, and no one to talk to for long stretches of time while waiting for tests about which he or she knows very little?

In many hospitals patients are referred to by staff members by their  body parts: the kidney in 101, the heart in 543, the stroke in 300.  It is also common that the procedures administered are at the total convenience of the staff and docs without much consideration for the patient.  Numerous hospitals still ask loved ones to leave promptly at 8:00 PM each night, and many times bad news is delivered via the phone.

Consequently, the blog name, HealingHospitals.com which may seem almost like an oxymoron, is intended to help us all to create environments for healing. For the most part, we can probably agree that it would be great if hospitals were places where you could go to begin that healing process.  We might even agree that it would be wonderful if we could be nurtured there, to be helped to find the road to recovery through healing, and even more dramatically, to have a transformational experience that would help us break or modify those habits that keep bringing us back.

It would also be fantastic if, at the end of life, our loved ones could be admitted to control pain, or if the family could have respite.  More importantly, it would be amazing if relationships could be healed before the transition to the other side.

In the late eighties, when I entered healthcare administration, it was my passion to make hospitals more like hotels and spas. But, most importantly, it was all about making the hospitals healing places where patients would have a chance to change their lives in a meaningful way; mentally, physically, and spiritually, via a transformational center of caring.  Let me certify that we did just that, and it is going on to this day. The point is that “you can, too.”

This blog post is dedicated to “getting the word out” about your Healing Hospitals. So, let’s start at the beginning.  Actually, let’s start at my beginning.

In 1969, business communication consisted largely of yellow legal tablets, Bic pens, daily reminder calendars, newsletters that were pasted-up by hand, then run off on the mimeograph or ditto machine, and an occasional public meeting for the employees.

I remember one hospital whose philosophy was “We’re the biggest and the best, and if you don’t come here, you’re stupid and will probably die.”  Their CEO was totally against press releases, advertising, or public outreach of any kind. He would say, “If they don’t know us well enough from our work, we need to do better work.”

News coverage was pretty simple at that time, too.  You sent your news release to the local paper(s), local radio, and, if available, local television stations.  Grand slam home runs in communications in that era would consist of a story that hit the wires or made either the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Not unlike scenes from Ozzie and Harriet or Leave it to Beaver, things were formal and “normal.”

The interesting thing about today’s world, is that just the description of  “how to communicate” from a business perspective would take thousands of words.  Without beating all of those digital horses to death, we now have hundreds of television cable choices, Satellite radio, dozens of specialty publications, 24 hour/real-time web-based everything, and so much spin that even the late S.I. Hiyakawa would be flabbergasted.

So, the question becomes, “What’s the ticket?”  “How do we get the word out about our work, our facility, our philosophy?”  To that end, it is important to understand that the entire vision of healing hospitals is a wholesome, caring, loving, nurturing philosophy that is profoundly newsworthy. How do you capture the hearts and minds of current patients, their families, their neighbors, and their neighbor’s neighbors?   Interestingly enough, the first approach and my initial recommendation is education for your employees.

Many employees have not yet made the connection between this type of unique care and publicity.  Obviously, not unlike the old CEO quoted above, it is the power of “word of mouth” that can carry the day locally, but –not unlike my last CEO experience, if there is not enough population to produce growth, then you need to reach beyond the local geographic boarders. By doing so, we tripled in size over a decade of population decline.

There is an old saying that “anyone who is 50 miles from home can become an expert.” For the most part, most people are not aware of your quality care, your commitment to humankind, your nurturing attitude even 30 miles away.  Consequently, media is the key.  What I have found is that national media can bring a halo of credibility to an organization that years of local media could never bring.  Unfortunately, unless you have done something wrong or a meteor drops onto your grounds, national media is not that easy to attract.

We were fortunate in that we had the Wall Street Journal, USA Today (four times), the New York Times, the Today Show, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Oncology International, Forbes, Fortune, and several stories in Reuters releases and at least three placed with the Associated Press that were picked up internationally.  How did we do it you might ask?  We often times did it by linking local stories to national topics. It takes creativity, persistence, and a strong desire.

You need to do news releases to just about everyone. Pick topics that are timely, informative, and have a unique angle, and then work at it constantly.  The other way that we promoted our organizations was through social media and Web 2.0.   My original blog, Nick’s Blog at the time – started in 2005, now HealingHospitals.com (i.e., this blog), was the first hospital CEO blog in the world, and that brought a tremendous amount of new traffic to our organization.  We also became active on You Tube, Twitter, and Facebook long before many others in (and outside) the healthcare community accepted these phenomena.

Bottom line?  It can be done cost-effectively with great success, and we’re here to help.

Last year at this time, as word of the global economic meltdown was beginning to take hold, we saw the beginning of a decline in all aspects of purchasing, including the  optional surgeries and tests in our hospitals.  At the same time, as a member of several volunteer boards, we began to see declines in ticket sales that went as high as 20%.  Later, we met with restaurateurs who indicated that their business was down between 10 and 20%, an amount that proved to be terminal for numerous marginal companies.

As the year proceeded, we saw  hospitals make extensive cutbacks in employee  education, travel, and marketing.  This trend became the norm in the industry.  The healthcare-related industries that seemed to hurt the most were those involved in construction and new equipment acquisition.  One type of firm that did well was financial consulting groups, like SunStone Consulting, LLC , organizations that specialized in finding money that hospitals had already earned, but had either not been staffed deeply enough to pursue or that did not know the processes necessary to generate these funds.

For those of us in administrative consulting, the year has been interesting.  Decision makers stepped back a little and waited to see where Obamacare was heading, to collect more cash in a society where “cash was definitely king,” and to cut back on new initiatives until things had settled down economically.  These leaders watched the markets, looked at investment activities, counted revenue versus expense results, and generally became more conservative in their leadership approaches.

What’s on the horizon:  There is an old saying that “He who looks into a crystal ball to predict the future will get crystal in his eye,” that is not far from truth.  Are we completely out of the woods?  Not by a long shot.  Will there be additional taxes, additional expenditures that are not budgeted nationally?  Yes, most assuredly, there will be, but are we certainly seeing more positive signs in virtually every economic indicator that would predict at least a somewhat more optimistic overall outlook.

Wall Street Journal: Pointing to renewed signs that the global slump is bottoming out, the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday upgraded its outlook for 2010 while slightly trimming this year’s forecast.

The overleveraged global financial system continues to cast a shadow over the economic outlook, however, and the fund urged policymakers not to become complacent about recent market improvements.

“Financial conditions have improved, as unprecedented policy intervention has reduced the risk of systemic collapse and expectations of economic recovery have risen,” the IMF said in its updating its outlook for the world economy and financial system. “Nonetheless, vulnerabilities remain and complacency…

So, if we embrace those little rays of hope as a means of restarting the economic engines, if we visualize a better future for all of us, if we focus on the positive, at the very least we most likely will find a better parking space at the Mall!

Happy Holidays and here’s knowing that 2010 will be a better year for everyone.  (It wouldn’t take much!)

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Cosmos – Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Over the last several years, we have made extraordinary claims in our blogs, our speeches, and our consulting.  We have made claims that have been questioned, sometimes scoffed at, and generally ignored by the masses who believe that their way is the only way.  It is almost as if these claims are so seemingly “out there,” that many believe they could not possibly be true.

• less than 1% infection rates
• lowest restraint rates
• lowest re-admission rates
• lowest mortality rates
• 99% patient approval rates
• 97% employee approval rates

In hindsight,  should we have just kept these claims “under the basket” because too many believe they look too good to be true?

When we claimed a bottom line that was over $2.5 M in a hospital with fewer beds than an average wing of most hospitals, you could see the frowns of disbelief on the faces of financial officers.  When we claimed those approval rates, the CEO’s of other hospitals simply smiled and probably thought to themselves, “…maybe in your little hospital, but NEVER in mine.”

Now that I am no longer affiliated with my previous employer, let me throw down the gauntlet to you.  It is my complete and sincere belief that these results, with your total support and endorsement, can happen in your facilities. It is my further belief that I can help deliver those results for you, so that instead of laying people off, you too can double or triple in size. I believe that you can take your everyday challenges and turn them into unbelievable successes.  How?  Take the pages from my book on hospital management.  (The one that’s not published yet, but firmly planted in my heart and head.) In the interim, get yourself a copy of my first healthcare book that has been published, Taking the Hell Out of Healthcare.

• If you are a genuinely kind person, that will show through in your management style.  Kindness is not weakness.
• If you care about your staff, they will care about not only you but also about your patients.
• If you treat people with dignity at all levels of the organization, your organizational culture can change.
• If you help the 10 percent or so of your employees, physicians, and others who do not support this philosophy to find work at neighboring institutions, they will be the gift that keeps on giving as they run rampant over patients at those hospitals and drive those patients to your doors.

These are not difficult assignments.  They require only that you stick to your resolve, that you always try to do what is right, and that you do not stop until all of the necessary changes have been made.  Healing organizations start with YOU.  Healing organizations embrace their human resources.  They embrace patient families.  They DO NOT function like cold, corporate America.  They function like patient-centered America.  Kindness in the workplace is not a gimmick, not a fleeting idea, not a once or twice a year thing, it is a complete commitment to a change in culture that reaches out to patients, employees, and medical staff.

The cost?  In the big picture, the cost is not even a consideration. Your investment now is less  than you can imagine, as your facilities grow, expand, and thrive. Besides:

What does it cost to be nice?

What does it cost to be civil?

What does it cost to be kind?

Healing Hospitals are a way of life.  Make sure that your hospital becomes just that, a place for healing.

One of Johnny Carson’s funniest ongoing “bits” (He was the guy who hosted The Tonight Show before Jay Leno) was that of Carnac the Magnificent.  Carnac was a psychic with a large elaborate turban and a plethora of envelopes, all of which were “hermetically sealed” and had been kept in “a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls’ porch since noon” that day.  Johnny would hold each envelope up to his head and give the answer to the question that was sealed in the envelope.

Carnac’s answer: “Sis, boom, bah.”

The question: “What sound does a sheep make when it explodes?”

Well, here’s my version.

Carnac:  “The Baby Boomers will begin to speak more and more feverishly about their wants, likes, and dislikes relative to hospital care.”

The question would be: “What will eventually make you kiss your job good-bye?”

I’m sorry.  I know it wasn’t funny, but the point is that patient choice, patient transparency, patient dignity,  billing simplicity, and — most importantly — loving, nurturing patient care and improvements in every level of quality will become the demanded norm.  Remember, we Boomers have never been laid back.  Ours is a generation of demanding “I” driven professionals who have influenced the way blue jeans are made (i.e., to fit our pear-shaped butts).  We’ve invented levels of debt that were not even thought of before.  We have influenced drug use, stock market use; you name it.  What makes any of you think that you are out of the woods with us?

It’s my further prediction that those hospitals that do not follow the path of creating healing hospitals will struggle and many may not survive.  We Boomers will contribute to more bankruptcies and closings than even the Balanced Budget Amendment.

We’ve been watching the hundreds of hospitals out there that are marching in lock step to the past re: patient care.  It’s like observing a physician who doesn’t even try to be nice to his patients.  A year or so into the practice, they come into the president’s office and say, “Why am I not making my financial goals?”   If things don’t become softer, more gentle, more humane, our patients will vote with their feet.

Oh, sure, you may have five or so years before the dominant players, the Boomers, take over, but, believe me when I tell you that the vast majority of businesses “on the financial bubble” right now are filled with employees who have either bad or no attitudes.  Those “It’s not my job” attitudes.

I have carefully observed organizations like Circuit City transition from model companies to bankrupt companies.  They changed their incentive methodologies for their employees, stopped listening to them, and stood back and watched as those same employees undermined their sales by saying things like, “I don’t care what you buy.  My check doesn’t change either way.”

Walk through your hospital, and take a good look at what is going on in each department.  Are your registration people friendly and kind?  Are they sensitive to the frail elderly, young, and frightened?  Are your techs polite, nurturing, caring?  Is the receptionist friendly on the phone, or do they throw everyone into voice mail hell?  How is your executive staff?  Are they parent-to-child leaders? Reality is what is happening; not what you think is happening.

Get yourself a secret shopper or two and let them work your system.  It can be a real eye opener, a  hard dose of reality.  Are your Press Ganey scores lower than a typical prison hospital?  Do your employee surveys reflect their love and respect for their fellow employees or for their job?  Are they proud to work at your facility?  Most importantly, would they recommend your hospital to their friends and families or would they recommend it as a place of employment for their peers?

If I haven’t captured your imagination yet, maybe you’re too hardened by the present.  I heard a PBS interview today where a Pakistani land owner said that when he tried to get his men to work together to carry larger quantities of dirt from one place to another, they refused and insisted that the bucket was the only way they had ever done it. They then told him that change is too dangerous.  Check your buckets.  Make sure they don’t end up empty.

Why Healing Hospitals?  Transparency.  Human Dignity.  Patient Advocacy. All of these represent a new way of administering health care in this country.  Our industrialized model of care in the mirror image of factory-like settings is no longer acceptable, viable, or an alternative.  We, as a country, as a society –as a culture, need to step up and do what is right.  Love, kindness, nurturing, and a commitment to patient advocacy are the correct ways to interact with our patients.

Many organizations who embrace the various human dignity monikers such as Planetree and Eden Alternative do so for marketing clout, for positive press, or for hoped-for financial gains.  Upon meeting some of these leaders, transparency becomes a very recognizable trait because they themselves are transparent –and not in the good  sense.  Rather, they are transparently “takers” in an environment that is much better served by “givers.”

For a country that is so obsessed with standardized tests, our healthcare delivery scores are abysmal, astonishing, and asinine. Not unlike our appetite for Biggie fast food meals and Biggie drinks, our appetite for beautiful trappings without substance, for corporate jets, for the power of millions and in some cases billions of dollars in reserves has resulted in a dysfunctional health delivery system that looks at patients as widgets.

Nicholas D. Kristof  NYT photo

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Op-Ed columnist has written another compelling article about the  U.S. health system, in which he quotes the latest World Health Organization figures. (Download the .pdf file.) According to the WHO report, the United States ranks 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality. A child in the U.S. is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland. He then quoted another study, a recent report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute that looked at how well 19 developed countries succeeded in avoiding “preventable deaths,” such as those where a disease could be cured or forestalled. The U.S. ranked in last place. Dead last.

He did find one health statistic that is strikingly above average: life expectancy for Americans who have already reached the age of 65. At that point, they can expect to live longer than the average in industrialized countries. That’s because Americans above age 65 actually have universal health care coverage: Medicare, he writes. Suddenly, a diverse population with pockets of poverty is no longer such a drawback.

Learning how to convert your hospital to the standards of  Healing Hospitals is not rocket science.  It is, however, not without tough decisions, aggressive doses of nonconformity, a passion and commitment to patient advocacy, and a strong desire to improve infection, readmission, restraint, and mortality rates.  It can be done, but it takes guts, a break from the conventional, unconventional wisdom, and a willingness to do what is not only right …but also what is very, very smart.

WHO Report – Primary Health Care: Now More Than Ever

View more documents from Nick Jacobs.

As I was moving some books around today, I noticed a paper that had fallen out of an old notebook. At the top of the page was the title Growth. Although the year does not stand out in my memory, the circumstances do. If a guess was involved, it would be ‘05 or ‘06, but no date was present. The situation was one of determining not only how to avoid laying people off because of necessary budget cuts, but how to grow the organization, so that all of the staff could remain employed and get their raises on an ongoing basis.

Of course, there were a list of issues relating to attracting physicians and patients. That “yada yada” list included traditional ideas like recruitment, increased marketing in a new clinic, new equipment for the breast center, expansion of the Emergency Department, performing more traditional surgical procedures, a higher-slice CT scanner, etc.

Then, there were the decidedly non-traditional ideas, like the addition of a data fusion center, increased uses of integrative medicine, a minimally-invasive bariatric center, expansion of the laboratory to include proteomic and genomic testing, management of donated tissue, and telemedicine were all there.

Looking back at that time in my CEO tenure, all of those ideas came to fruition, along with a 3T MRI with breast coil, and every one of these changes came with a certain amount of dissonance and conflict. When it all came down to it, however, the piece that worked the best – the area of concentration that yielded the most profound growth, – the ultimate, saving grace was that of producing a healing hospital.

On that same piece of paper was this note: “We must attract a heart-centered musician to work with the patients and their families.” We found that woman, Rachel, and along with her cohorts, Jean (who did aroma therapy, Reiki, and drumming), the music of healing and transition began. Later, physicians like Dr. Kelly brought flower essences and a half dozen other healing modalities. People were uplifted, reconnected, and relaxed. Through the use of therapeutic music, we gave the patient what they needed at the moment.

Barry Bitman – Admin from Remo Belli on Vimeo.

Each week, it will be my goal to give you a peek into the world of healing hospitals where people don’t come for an oil change, a new body part, or a shot of life, but rather a place where people go to heal. As a country our medical facilities have been lured into becoming factory-like for the sake of survival, but what we found was that the more humanness, the more loving, caring attitude, the more hope and help we could give in nurturing the body, mind, and soul, the better we did, the bigger we grew, and – most importantly – the happier our patients, their families, our physicians, and our employees became.

Healing Hospitals are growing hospitals.

For the past several months, I have been searching for a new blog title. Nick’s Blog, NickJacobs.org, Ask a Hospital President, Taking the Hell out of Healthcare… none of them really told the story of my passion, my drive, my desire to change healthcare in a way that would be meaningful for every patient, every employee, and every physician.  Finally, the idea of what exactly I believe in, try to strive for, and teach hit me:  “Healing Hospitals.” Not only do I believe that we can make our hospitals healing places, I also believe that we can heal the hospitals themselves.

Nick Jacobs, FACHE – HealingHospitals.com

For too many years, the Socratic style of teaching our docs has basically made many of them as tough as professional football players.  We have experienced “The Old Guard” in nursing, where, when new nurses come on board the older nurses are encouraged to “eat their young.”  We also know that the over-utilization of overhead paging, blood tests in the middle of the night, loud staff members, et al lead to what can only be described as a tense environment.

For the past 20  plus years, we have advocated a kinder, gentler hospital environment.  During that time we have introduced all types of non-traditional healing environments, integrative medicine, roving psychologists, drum circles, aroma, music, pet, and humor therapy as well as the elimination of bullies from the medical staff.

These are just a few of the very effective mechanism that can be introduced to create healing environments in hospitals.  Healing gardens, labyrinyths, 24 hour visiting, double beds in the OB suites, and the beat goes on and on with decorative fountains, fireplaces, skylights, balconies, but most importantly dignity and respect amongst all staff and visitors toward patients.  So, “Healing Hospital” has multiple meanings. Healing will take place more quickly, thoroughly, and meaningfully in these facilities, and the entire staff will be charged with the promotion of healing by creating an overall healing environment.

Well, I’m sure if you type in nickjacobs.org or even Ask a Hospital President.com you’ll still get to us, but remember that our overall goal, our direction, our mission, our passion, and our job is to help you to create healing environments where infection rates drop, as will lengths of stay, readmision, restraint and mortality rates.  Call us at SunStone Consulting, LLC.  412-992-6197.