Board 263 - Program Innovations Abstract An Innovative Approach to Leadership Development

Abstract

Introduction/Background Rapid changes are imminent in healthcare because of the Affordable Care Act. Healthcare organizations will be rewarded for achieving specific targets for the delivery of healthcare services. Therefore, it is imperative for healthcare organizations to be poised to respond in order to remain financially viable-“no money no mission.” Evidence based research documents the critical role healthcare leaders will play in achieving the Pay for Performance (value based purchasing), HCAHPS and other standards. The evidence further documents that leadership rounding is a ‘best practice’ that positively impacts patient satisfaction scores and employee engagement…as go the leaders go the organizations! Research also links the impact of employee engagement with higher patient satisfaction scores, higher quality of care and increased revenue. Methods The Western Pennsylvania Hospital (WPH), part of the Allegheny Health Network, implemented a leadership rounding initiative in January 2013. With Duke Rupert, President/CEO as the executive sponsor, all WPH leaders were expected to attend the training sessions and then participate in leadership rounding. His goals were to implement “best practices,” continue to strengthen the Values-based culture, improve communication, achieve superior clinical outcomes, provide exquisite customer service and achieve the HCAHPS and other standards. To plan and implement innovative and interactive education for the leadership rounding initiative, the Corporate Organizational Development/Talent Management (OD/TM) Team partnered with the STAR Center Team. All WPH leaders including the C-Suite attended a four hour educational session, replete with didactic content, videos and ‘hands on" practice where leaders were filmed with a follow-up debrief of their own scenarios. The debrief enabled the leaders to identify their own opportunities for improvement. Results: Conclusion The four Kirkpatrick levels of evaluation are being implemented in this project. Level I-satisfaction feedback indicated that leaders were receptive to the information and believed the education was valuable. The leaders (n = 62) were asked to complete course evaluations to measure how satisfied/dissatisfied they were with their training. Five items asked about the simulations and the leaders rated how much they agreed/disagreed with the items using seven-point Likert scales where one represented “strongly disagree” and seven represented “strongly agree.” Each of these items had measures of central tendency at or very close to seven, indicating very high levels of satisfaction. See Table 1.The scenario debriefs indicated that Level II - learning did occur. Level III evaluation - behavior change on the job and Level IV - impact will measure the Results of the following process: leaders were assigned to round in various departments, equipped with scripted messages for both patients and staff. Specific questions and logs were developed in order to obtain information and report feedback. Because the data gathering has just begun, it is premature to provide statistical proof of behavior change and/or impact. Monitoring will continue, Results reviewed and changes/enhancements made in order to improve the outcomes. All 21st century healthcare organizations have similar challenges in clinical quality, customer service and process improvement. This innovative educational methodology to prepare leaders for those challenges can be easily replicated at other institutions. Disclosures None.