Helping the CEO Sleep Better at Night: Clinical Operating Systems

Having transferred the CEO role at Value Capture several months ago, I’m benefitting from a number of gratifying full-circle moments in recent days.

I didn’t know how this one was going to turn out, though. When you are in a group of health system leaders -- some clients, some others you hope to work with -- and a just-retired COO you respect opens their mouth, the nerve endings tingle.

“Yesterday, I had outpatient surgery at our place,” he said. “The experience was smooth beginning to end, and I was out of there in a little over two hours. And I know that it was five hours up and down, forever, before this work our place is doing together with Value Capture.” Phew.

This meant even more than face value to me for a specific reason. The COO’s successors are determined not just to make peri-op world class, but to “stop having to solve the same problems every two years,” and “get out of reactive mode and into proactive excellence mode” across the whole health system.

They are doing it not through magic bullets, but by:

1) reframing the organization around not just solving today’s biggest problems but doing it in a way that they are building the muscle, and the discipline, to solve tomorrow’s problems as well, even though we don’t know what they are.

2) executing the reframing through the build and use of a world class, disciplined clinical operating system. That means a few practical things, things that are “simple” but not easy:

• Making sure that connections are tight and reliable between customers and suppliers across the flow of clinical care to the patient.
• Solving daily operations problems quickly and in real time (not via committees and old data).
• Tying daily management tightly to the clinical flows and effective problem SOLVING, not a bunch of office-bound meetings.

As our client spoke, with the mind of a leader but with the voice and perspective of a patient, what we are really doing hit me.

We help leaders sleep better at night. Not every night, but better and better week to week and month to month. Because they know that by taking the clinical operating system approach, they are taking aim at all the things that are driving dissatisfaction and burnout across the organization, including themselves.

Moving away from a million projects dictated by leadership that collide on the same units and clinics and drive front line leaders crazy and toward integrated, effective support for daily clinical work. Helping people succeed and feel supported in caring for patients, the reason they got into health care in the first place.

Then there’s the way it frees hours a day for leaders (and everyone else locked in meetings all day). About two disciplined hours to run a world class operation. The rest of the day to chase the future.

If you’d like to talk to some of your peers who are taking this approach with our support, please contact me at ksegel@valuecapturellc.com.