Fwd: Good News...How Hospitals Heal Themselves

["Jim Clauson, Breakthrough Systems" <jim@jclauson.com>]

From Bob Mason:

> Dear Jim:
> I wanted to tell you about Good News: How Hospitals Heal Themselves.  Our 
> documentary report is airing on PBS stations this Spring and Summer.  DEN 
> correspondents need to know about it.  We are receiving enthusiastic 
> responses from healthcare professionals.  And we begin to see a movement 
> to raise this issue of hospital quality and patient focus with the public 
> at large.  That continues to be our aim; namely, to convince people-- both 
> professionals and patients--that systems thinking offers a new, blame-free 
> way of managing organizations and organizing the work for continual 
> improvement of outcomes and working conditions, in the case of hospitals, 
> for doctors, nurses and other workers.
>
> It is vital for DEN members to call their local public TV stations and 
> inquire about date and time of broadcast.  That will help a program 
> director to make an affirmative decision.
>
> For the first time, this documentary reports the depth of the patient 
> safety problem and how two large hospital systems have saved lives and 
> reduced errors, infections and waste by using Toyota and related quality 
> management principles. These methods could dramatically improve every 
> hospital in America  and reduce hospital care delivery by as much as 50 
> percent. And  without outside help or additional investment.
>
> We are convinced that this documentary and companion book can stimulate an 
> important national conversation on improving hospitals as well as how to 
> manage change in other American organizations.   A more detailed 
> description follows below.
>
> We hope DEN members will send anecdotes for the web site 
> www.managementwisdom.com where we are collecting reports that illustrate 
> the uses of systems thinking in health care delivery.
>
> Hope you are well.
>
> Bob Mason
> CC-M Inc. • 7755 16th Street, N.W. • Washington, DC 20012
> bob@cc-m.com • 202 882-7430 • www.managementwisdom.com
>
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> PRESS RELEASE: GOOD NEWS...HOW HOSPITALS HEAL THEMSELVES
> A One-Hour Documentary Airing on Public Television Spring/Summer 2006
> Reported by Former NBC Anchor Lloyd  Dobyns
>         •       Call your local PBS  station for time of broadcast
> PRESS RELEASE
> Contact: Robert Mason
> Phone: (800) 453-6280
> Website: www.managementwisdom.com
> Email: bob@cc-m.com
>
> WASHINGTON DC, USA -- HEALTHCARE UPDATE NEWS  SERVICE(TM) -- May 10, 2006: 
> This rare good news documentary reports on a surprising solution to 
> escalating costs, unnecessary deaths and waste in America's  hospitals. 
> Doctors and nurses tell how they did their best, working  overtime, while 
> hospital conditions worsened. They were delighted to learn  a new way to 
> improve patient care dramatically and reduce unnecessary  deaths, 
> suffering, errors, infections and costs without additional  resources or 
> government regulations.
>
> A PATIENT IS NOT AN AUTOMOBILE, BUT...
>
> The unlikely solution was to use Toyota management principles  called 
> "systems thinking" to improve their hospitals. Systems  thinking allows 
> leaders and staff to see the complex, modern workplace with "new eyes" and 
> turn problems into improvements. It has saved up to 50 percent in costs, 
> thousands of lives, and avoided hundreds of thousands of medical errors. 
> Significant improvements have already begun in  hospitals in several major 
> cities..
>
> The documentary also describes America's deadly  healthcare problem in 
> detail for the first time on television.
>
> THE PROBLEM
>         •       Doctors, nurses and  administrators reveal the dangerous 
> conditions of American hospitals,  and
>         •       How the patient became  lost in modern hospitals.
>
> THE SOLUTION
>         •       How staff put patient  care and safety first and quickly 
> began to reduce waste and improve  clinical outcomes;
>         •       How the reporting of  errors and potential errors 
> significantly increased and enabled better  patient care when hospital 
> administrators ceased focusing on blame;  and
>         •       An MD administrator  predicts these new methods will 
> solve the malpractice crisis.
>
> The documentary reports on SSM Health Care system with 20  hospitals and 
> 21,000 employees across the Midwest and a Pittsburgh initiative involving 
> more than 40 hospitals. In 1989 SSM CEO Sister Mary Jean Ryan  began to 
> adopt methods developed by Americans in the l950s's to help  Japanese 
> industry. She also used the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality  Award 
> criteria to teach systems ideas.
>
> Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who raised safety and  profits 
> dramatically at Alcoa, when he was that company's CEO, using Toyota 
> automobile manufacturing methods,  introduced these ideas in l997 to the 
> Pittsburgh hospitals with  equally significant results.
>
> No outside funds were required. Not incidentally, these hospitals leaders 
> and staffs have done what the American automobile makers were not  able to 
> sustain as they tried such systems methods in the l980s. The  automakers 
> abandoned these ideas for short-term profits, and currently are  suffering 
> huge, possibly fatal, losses while Japanese car manufacturers  prosper. 
> Systems management can be used to make any organization from a  hospital, 
> school, government agency, manufacturing plant--even an 
> entire  nation--more effective, efficient, and competitive.
>
> LLOYD DOBYNS REPORTS
>
> Lloyd Dobyns, former NBC News anchor, is the reporter for the documentary 
> and notes that everyone is a potential patient. Producer 
> Clare  Crawford-Mason was also the producer of If Japan Can...Why 
> Can't  We? the NBC White Paper, also anchored by Dobyns, which introduced 
> systems  and quality ideas to the West in l980.
>
> A companion how-to book, The  Nun and the Bureaucrat-How They Found an 
> Unlikely Cure for America's Sick Hospitals  is available.
>
> Note: This was the last documentary of the late Reuven Frank, legendary 
> pioneer television documentary  producer. He served as its consulting 
> senior producer. Frank, former NBC  News president, was senior producer of 
> the If Japan Can...Why Can't  We? recently named the second-most 
> influential documentary in the history  of film and television by The 
> Washington Times.
>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
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<>=====================<><><>===================<>
Jim Clauson --------------------- jim@jclauson.com
Breakthrough Systems ----- http://jclauson.com
<>=====================<><><>===================<>


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