The healthcare C-suite is changing, as many hospitals and health systems shake up their leadership structures in an attempt to ensure lasting success and support organizational transformation. Top priorities facing today's healthcare leaders range from delivering patient-centered care to promoting workforce well-being, optimizing new technologies like artificial intelligence, intelligent automation and analytics, and more.
Becker's Hospital Review recently spoke with Rich Bluni, RN, international keynote speaker and Senior Director at Huron, about the tools, frameworks and strategies healthcare leaders can use to increase their effectiveness and confidence on the job.
Healthcare leaders across the country face similar challenges + priorities
In his work, Mr. Bluni visits hospitals and health systems of all sizes across the U.S. A common theme he's noticed: Healthcare leaders are grappling with trends that demand a broad skill set. For example, as organizations strive to improve patient outcomes and experience, greater focus and skills are needed around patient-centered care.
"Healthcare often takes a team approach, and one of the most important team members is the patient," Mr. Bluni said. "We can't forget that. Leaders must refocus and expand their emphasis on patient-centered care."
Workforce well-being is also top of mind. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many healthcare employees are struggling with PTSD, depression, anxiety and stress-related disorders. "Healthcare leaders need to create supportive and resilient environments where they listen to teams and recognize how important mental health is," Mr. Bluni said. "Leaders also must hold up a mirror to themselves and ask how well they are taking care of themselves, so they can be more effective."
Mr. Bluni also noted how healthcare organizations are increasingly using AI and analytics to improve decision-making, personalize medicine and increase operational efficiency. "We often don't think of efficiency and compassion in the same sentence," he said. "But when employees are overwhelmed and overworked, efficiency is a form of compassion. Maximizing efficiency with technology can help."
Amid efforts to hone patient-centered care, workforce well-being and innovation, the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion can't be overlooked. Healthcare leaders are addressing disparities not only within their organizations but also related to broader care access. The goal is to improve health outcomes across all populations that a hospital or health system serves.
Leadership is a journey — and people need a map
The Huron’s Nine Principles® is a framework that can help healthcare leaders on their journey to becoming more effective.
- Commit to excellence. Leaders must decide to embark on a journey of improvement.
- Measure the important things. Measurement is a way to shine a light on the organization's work. It helps guide teams and keeps them on the right path.
- Build a culture around service. At its core, healthcare is about serving others.
- Develop leaders to develop people. Great leaders coach team members to be their best at work. At the same time, leaders may need development as well to excel on the job and elevate their teams.
- Focus on employee engagement. Healthcare leaders must engage with teams so team members feel valued, seen and heard.
- Be accountable. Leaders must take ownership of their personal journey and need to create an environment where their teams function through accountability.
- Align behaviors with goals and values. When leaders set goals, they must cascade them throughout the organization, ensuring that values and behaviors align with those goals. "If your behaviors don't line up with your goals, it's like running a race without knowing where the finish line is or how long the race is," Mr. Bluni said.
- Communicate at all levels. There must be transparency in the organization, so people know what's going on. Leaders must remember that communication is a two-way street — employees need to feel heard.
- Recognize and reward success. Engagement comes from leaders recognizing and rewarding teams for great work. "When people quit, one of the top reasons is because they don't feel valued by their leaders or they don't feel seen," Mr. Bluni said.
This framework helps healthcare leaders adopt a more proactive approach to management. In using this framework, many leaders report feeling more confident in their jobs.
"I worked with a nurse leader who always felt very overwhelmed," Mr. Bluni said. "She said most days she felt more like a firefighter than a nurse. I shared with her the idea of rounding on her staff, as well as rounding on patients. She gave it a try and the results were dramatic."
She had meaningful conversations, made personal connections and asked questions with a purpose; she asked what was going well, what could be improved and whether people had the tools they needed to do their jobs.
"In all leadership positions, you must deal with conflict and fires," Mr. Bluni said. "But there's another aspect of firefighting — fire prevention. When you are effective at fire prevention, there are fewer fires to fight. By rounding on her staff, this nurse leader found she was able to get ahead of the fires and take action on issues before they got bigger. After a few months, she said she felt like she had 40% of her life back."
Authentic leaders share their stories, cultivate self-awareness + empower their teams
Authenticity is critically important for healthcare leaders because it enables them to bring their true selves to work. One way to do this is by sharing stories. Stories are how people connect to each other.
"People get into healthcare for big reasons," Mr. Bluni said. "Sometimes as leaders, however, we disconnect from our origin stories and forget why we're here. One way to practice authenticity is to share your story with your team and ask them to tell their stories too."
It's also important for leaders to have self-awareness by understanding their strengths and weaknesses. "Hold a mirror up to yourself and cultivate self-awareness," Mr. Bluni said. With that knowledge, he said, healthcare leaders can identify ways to engage in continuous learning. This can be formal or informal — such as listening to podcasts or reading books.
At the same time, effective leaders give themselves grace and understand when they've done their best. "Too often, as leaders we strive for perfection, but that's unreachable," Mr. Bluni said. "It's about progress over perfection."
Finally, leaders must empower their teams. Ask for feedback and allow employees to have a voice. People want to work in places where they feel seen and heard. "When we focus on self-awareness, continuous learning, team empowerment, effective communication and extending grace to ourselves, I think we'll find ourselves growing as leaders by leaps and bounds," Mr. Bluni said.