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It’s Been (Quite) a Year…

December 19th, 2009

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.

obama_health_costs

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…

100_on-iceSo, 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!)

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Posted in Current Affairs, Healthcare, Hospitals, marketing

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“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

December 3rd, 2009

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

healing_mural420

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.”

eldercare_nurse5_445

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.

doctor_welcome220The 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.

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Posted in Healthcare, Hospitals, Leadership

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Healing Hospitals: Get ready… Get set…

November 25th, 2009

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?

nicksblog_boomercouple_golf400

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.

Now-closed Circuit City 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.

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Posted in Boomers, Healthcare, Hospitals, patient-centered care

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Creating Functional Healing Hospitals

November 8th, 2009

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.

healing_mosaicMany 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 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.

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Posted in Healthcare, Hospitals, Medicine

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On the Road to Healing Hospitals

October 30th, 2009

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.

growth_plant_hands400

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.

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Posted in Healthcare, Hospitals

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Healing Hospitals

October 18th, 2009

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 - HealingHospitals.com
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.

HCD-Cover-10_09These 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.

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Posted in Healthcare, Hospitals, Integrative Health, patient-centered care

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Thinking at the Beach

August 13th, 2009

In January, my journey to create a new division for SunStone Consulting, LLC, began, and, with the economy in a deep slump, it appeared to be a journey fraught with almost insurmountable challenges.  How does one begin a new division during a time when most organizations were digging deeply into self-preservation mode?

Photo credit: Generation Y Travel
Outer Banks, NC | Photo credit: Generation Y Travel

The first concept that we explored was to help organizations, groups, councils, and associations assist their members while providing either a stream of income or discounts for these organizations.  Several companies responded positively to this idea: Chambers of Commerce, Hospital organizations, and others signed on for involvement in these relationships.

By March, nearly 20 companies had come on board and 12 more have followed since then.  We brought on two additional marketing specialists to assist us with these contacts.  The areas of interest ranged from Environmental to Government; software to construction projects, from hazardous waste to  fund raising, building quality initiatives into employee job descriptions; and economic development to educational training for management.

Once it was clear that this component of the new division was going to be functional and effective, we placed our focus and emphasis on direct consulting, which, due to the economy, was a much greater challenge.  This effort started very slowly as organization after organization expressed sincere interest but most also faced serious budgetary challenges.  Of course, for SunStone Consulting’s other financial divisions, because they specialize in finding the money that typically was already earned by the hospital or assisting with compliance and billing issues, business remained strong.

telemedicine_connectsDuring this time some very interesting assignments appeared including:  a university wellness program, multiple brain-oriented companies, as well as two PTSD, and two combat wound injury-related programs.  This part of the new division is now beginning to flourish with assignments ranging from the military to a hospital-based disaster recovery center, from telemedicine in rural hospitals to development efforts in Indiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and California.

As we move forward into this next quarter, it is clear that the new division will produce results through rewarding relationships for all companies involved.

Some of you have asked me how this effort relates to having been a hospital CEO, and that answer is clear.  As a CEO, my days were filled with challenges, with literally dozens of special efforts emanating from numerous areas.  For example, here is a typical  list of topics dealt with on a CEO’s agenda:   meetings regarding the following:

  • Community Fitness Center
  • Tissue Repository
  • Breast Center
  • Hospice
  • OB department expansion
  • Pharmacy
  • Operating Rooms scheduling
  • Emergency Department
  • a construction project
  • marketing efforts for a new initiative
  • finance

If you can’t multi-task, the position of CEO is not a place to be, and keeping up with these consulting clients is just as stimulating.

By March, nearly 20 companies had come on board and 12 more have followed since then.  We brought on two additional marketing specialists to assist us with these contacts.
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Posted in Development, Healthcare, Hospitals

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May Cause Dizziness, Osteoporosis and Slow Death…

June 1st, 2009

There were some very bright people involved who confirmed my suspicions, but it was my persistence, my explorations, and my perseverance that took me to those scientists, doctors, and pharmacists. You see, the prognosis that I was given involved a very much dreaded series of events that played heavily in the death of my paternal grandmother – kidney failure.  Okay, it was mild.  Yes, it was just the very beginning stages, but, like surgery, when it involves my body, it’s major!

drug interaction awareness education Nick Jacobs SunStone consulting

After an E-mail to a very well known and highly respected physician at one of the mostly widely recognized medical facilities in the world, my suspicions were even more intensified.  Phone calls to two different pharmacist friends resulted in me getting the information that I had been seeking.  There were at least three recent studies that confirmed that ARB’s (Angiotensin Receptor Blockers) could cause renal (i.e. kidney) dysfunction, resulting in the doubling of serium creatinine, leading to death.

“Reports in the medical literature reinforce the importance of recognizing that angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors should be used with caution in patients with bilateral renal artery stenosis . . . Clinicians should be aware that renal failure might occur when using ARBs in these patients”…

…read one website.   Like I said, I’m not a doctor, and I’m sure that there will be plenty of opinions about these studies.

From another website:

“Chicago, IL – The addition of an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) to ACE-inhibitor therapy makes treatment noncompliance due to side effects more likely and ups the risks of symptomatic hypotension and renal dysfunction, suggests a pooled analysis of four randomized trials [1]. The findings are consistent with current treatment guidelines that express reservations about routinely combining the two drug classes, the authors write in the October 8, 2007 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.“

Well, to add insult to injury, last year I had my upper and lower GI work up, just for old times’ sake.    At the end of that procedure, the doc suggested one of those purple pills.  Tonight on the news, right after the GM bankruptcy, the story went something like this: According to the Associated Press…

“Taking such popular heartburn drugs as Nexium, Prevacid, or Prilosec for a year or more can raise the risk of a broken hip markedly in people over 50, a large study in Britain found.”

Well, okay, it was Britain.  We all know that they are generally much more healthy than we Americans.  Maybe the study should have read:  “If you are healthy, you will break your hip in England.”

I know, I know.  We all have to die of something, but darn it, why does it have to be the result of stuff that is supposed to be helping us stay alive? I hate the thought of spending the equivalent of a Mercedes car payment each month to load my body up with chemicals that do more damage than Jack and Coke or Goose and Tonic.  Seriously, Aunt Martha really seemed to have it together:  Don’t take anything stronger than an aspirin.  For heaven sakes, don’t get a physical if you can avoid it, and live your life in moderation.  She’s still going strong in her eighties.

Oh, well, it’s time for my Niaspan, Plavix, Nexium, Lotrel, Toporol, Zetia, Crestor and fish oil cocktail …with a chaser of mulivitamins. To your health!

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Posted in Healthcare, Hospitals, Medicine

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Focus on the Positive

April 29th, 2009

Okay, who wants to be the first one to have written about a pandemic?  Unfortunately, I know way too much about this stuff.  Guess it’s that old hospital CEO mindset.  Prepare for the worst, and expect it.  Well, let’s all pray that this thing settles down before more people die.  My friend, Dr. Matt Masiello wrote an E-mail today that could probably help a lot of people.  A public health message with a level of calm urgency.

Dr. Matt MasielloBased on the cumulative experience of the scientific and health promotion/disease prevention staff at WRI, we began a more active approach in  preparedness then what had been recommended by WHO/CDC and the local EMS. We feel that with WHO now raising the alert level to 5 our actions were appropriate. May I suggest the following.

1.    Prepare and distribute a letter to parents asking them to keep their children home if they have a cough, fever, headache. If someone in the family has the same signs and symptoms the children should also stay home until  the illness by the family member is confirmed not to be Swine flu.

2.    Place a small table with sanitizer bottles at the entrance ways of the school buildings.

3.    Encourage staff to carry on their person the small hand sanitizers.

4.     Instruct your teachers to review with the students advice on handwashing and use of the sanitizers. Teachers should remind students throughout the day of the importance of handwashing as well as keeping their hands away from their face and the importance of coughing into their sleeves. Wash/sanitize hands afterwards. I would encourage formal, scheduled trips to the BR to wash hands and when ever necessary.

5.    Place the attached sign in key locations and encourage staff and familes to take them and post at home as a reminder. Wash hands prior to and returning from work/school/play.

6.    Get plenty of rest, eat well and exercise.

7.    Open windows for better movement of air, when and if possible.

8.    Minimize social gatherings. The canceling of social events may come as  a formal recommendation via the CDC in the very near future.

Matt

So, that’s the official word from the United States’ representative to the World Health Organization.

Now, onto life.  Last night we completed a list of services that we are helping to provide to hospitals, schools, hotels, newspapers,  businesses and anyone else that might be interested.  Rather than list each business individually, let me list their services, products, and work, and, if you’re interested, give me a call.

  • Technology Solutions for Government
  • Sophisticated market research
  • Physician billing/Pre-certification and approval of payments for doc offices.
  • Telemedicine and medical device marketing analysis and launch
  • Food Services for hospitals and long term care centers
  • Education Programs and Leadership Solutions
  • Continuing Medical Education for physicans and nurses
  • State and Federal Lobbyists and Business Development Experts
  • Personal Healthcare and Corporate Wellness
  • Crisis Response Communications
  • Construction solutions (REIT)
  • HR and House Wide Quality System for Job Descriptions
  • Translation services (Contract pending)
  • Specialized Cancer Laboratory Services
  • Removal and disposal of hazardous waste, a green company
  • Economic Development and ECAP green initiative
  • The Doctors’ Doctor – Physician office mergers, acquisitions and general business operations consulting, and Hospital Physician strategic planning

Obviously, each line represents a company that we represent, and even more obviously, SunStone Consulting is your answer for all of the financial challenges that hospitals face.

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Posted in Current Affairs, Epidemics, Hospital Administration, Hospitals

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NickJacobs.org???

April 2nd, 2009

Let me open this blog with a little housekeeping chore. Because I’ve retired from being a hospital president (Yes, they replaced me with two great people, count ’em, two.) , I’d like to change the name of this thing. It’s not that I’ve established a P-Diddy-type Twitter following where 100,000 human beings are waiting with baited breath to see what my next move will be, it just doesn’t seem right to keep calling myself a hospital president. We know who reads this thing, and we are grateful to our loyal, talented, and brilliant followers. We also know that we can link the old blog names to get you here. So, regardless of what you typed, or what gets Googled, our genius social media maven & webmaster, Michael Russell, can help to bring you home to this site.

Okay, so as a transformational advisor, a broker of sorts, most people with whom we have consulted have described me as a person who can fix things that are broken before they actually break. Maybe we should call it the “Break it if it’s not already fixed” blog. I’d love it if it was a name that would generate millions of hits and companies would fight to advertise on it.

My first thought was to use nickjacobs in the title because there is a Nick Jacobs on Facebook who teaches Aboriginal people in Australia, and he seems popular. There is another Nick Jacobs who is a professional organist, and one who is an athlete. There’s a Nick Jacobs who is a consultant and another a paramedic in London, one who had a blog who is a yachtsman, there’s my son, the commercial real estate broker, and finally, there’s a Nick Jacobs who does pornographic movies who is not my son. Actually, that Nick Jacobs’ followers would probably be the most disappointed by this blog.

Since the .com version of nick jacobs was already taken by some guy in England, we captured nickjacobs.org, and that will work for right now.

If you have any ideas, however, that you think would really rock the blogspere, let us know and we’ll check with our domain registrar to see if it is available. In fact, if you are the winner of a Name Nick’s Blog Contest, I’d be happy to consult for free BY PHONE for at least one hour of brainstorming with you about the topic of your choice: music, healthcare, proteomics, teaching, PR/Marketing, the travel business, or even physician recruitment.

Remember, Hospital Impact is already taken, and, because my last three consulting jobs have been with a newspaper, a nonprofit arts oragnization, and a chain of hotels, we don’t want to think too restrictively. Gotta earn a little money, too.

When we ran the breast center, we found that the website got more hits than anyone could imagine. The problem was that the readers were mostly thirteen-year-old boys who probably weren’t too interested in running a hospital. After Miss America had visited us, the hits went up exponentially when those two searches were combined. Somehow, I don’t think that Nick Jacobs’ Breast Center for Miss America would probably get me the type of following I’m currently hoping to attract. On the other hand?

A very good friend recently asked me to write a brief bio about what my new life is like, and it struck me that it is very much like my old life but without any restrictions. This is what I wrote:

While teaching junior high school instrumental music in the early 1970’s, Nick Jacobs made an extraordinary discovery. He learned that, by empowering his students and surrounding them with positive influences, he no longer was providing a service or even an experience for them.

What this entirely unique teaching style resulted in was a method for helping to transform students. By providing with both passion and commitment the tools needed by them to undertake their journey, his involvement with the students became a means of dramatically helping them to make whatever positive life changes they were seeking.

It was during that early period in his career that he also discovered that this formula could work to positively change lives in almost any aspect of living as he ran an arts organization, a convention bureau, and finally a hospital and research institute.

Since that time he has dedicated his personal work to helping others make their lives better, and that is exactly what he is doing in his position as an international executive consultant with SunStone Consulting, LLC.

Maybe that will give you something to chew on? Okay, something on which to chew.

SunStone Consulting. With more than 20 years experience in executive hospital leadership, Nick has an acknowledged reputation for innovation and patient-centered care approaches to health and healing.

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