My recent article on the overuse of handheld devices initiated a number of heated responses. Readers had strong opinions on the use of PDAs in meetings, but they had even stronger opinions on meetings themselves. As one reader wrote, "It's not the PDA's fault if a meeting does not hold everyone's information; it's the meeting's fault."
Meetings and their usefulness, or lack there of, are a hot topic in any workplace. I've avoided the topic here because I wasn't sure I wanted to jump on the "Death by Meetings" bandwagon. Even more, I wasn't sure I wanted to admit that there's a little part of me that actually likes meetings.
Before you call me crazy, let me explain. Every day, I'm dragged into at least one 4-hour, 475-e-mail exchange about a topic that involves a group of people with vastly different opinions. These e-mails usually involve some degree of translation and spell-checking, and inevitably, someone hits "reply" instead of "reply all," omitting the rest of the stakeholders. During these interchanges, I can't help but think, "Can't we just have a 15-minute meeting about this!?"
The problem with meetings, I think, is that they rarely occur when someone says, "Can't we just have a 15-minute meeting?!" For a lot of people, scheduling meetings is a way to deal with stress at work. These folks send meeting invites like emotional eaters devour potato chips. As a result, meetings usually happen when they're not needed, and they don't occur when they should.
Meetings involve forethought and planning, but most meeting organizers think preparation means hitting "Send" on a meeting invite. That's probably why disorganized, rambling meetings top the list of workers' meeting frustrations, according to a 2007 poll by Opinion Research USA.
Healthcare's just like any other industry when it comes to meeting misuse and abuse. But as a healthcare leader, you have an added challenge: How do you bring together your organization's stakeholders without interrupting patient care? Executive staff may plan to attend meetings, but, for most physicians and nurses, every meeting-filled hour is an hour away from patients. So, how do you ensure that your meetings are effective?
My colleague Corey Christman wrote about St. Vincent in this month's issue of HealthLeaders magazine. To ensure proper preparation takes place, every meeting in the three-hospital system must be preceded by an e-mailed agenda, complete with proposed outcomes for the time spent. This helps ensure that the meeting runs efficiently and follow-up actions occur. The unexpected result of these rules, says president and CEO Peter Banko, is that meetings are more likely to start on time when every minute is accounted for.
Banko also had his executive team flush its calendars of any recurring meeting that no longer addresses its "original purpose." Who doesn't have an overload of unnecessary recurring meetings that could use cleaning up?
There's no question that meetings are essential to doing business. They bring together decision-makers, facilitate brainstorming, and save you from long, frustrating e-mail strings. The trick, however, is that both the invite and the actual meeting be well thought-out, useful, and informative. They should involve action, not just updates, and, where possible, they should involve only the key players. Although the root of healthcare is life and death, every meeting is not.
Molly Rowe is leadership editor with HealthLeaders magazine. She can be reached at mrowe@healthleadersmedia.com.
Community Health Network has plans to announce a $130 million expansion of its Community Hospital South in Indianapolis. Community South already has been undergoing an $11 million renovation and expansion of its emergency department. The new expansion adds to the ongoing hospital-building boom and heightening hospital competition across Central Indiana.
Albany Medical Center has requested New York state approval for a $360 million complex that would add 116 beds to the facility. The expansion proposal is due to increased demand at the facility--admissions to Albany Med have risen by more than 27 percent over the past several years, officials said. If approved, construction would begin in late 2009 and be completed by early 2012.
A former healthcare executive who works with systems across the country, Deedra Hartung knows the skills and qualities it takes to be an effective leader. In this interview, Deedra discusses the evolving role of the healthcare CEO and what skills senior leaders must possess to be successful.
A shortage of neurosurgeons at St. Petersburg, FL-based Bayfront Medical Center has prompted emergency workers to take trauma victims to Tampa hospitals. Bayfront has long struggled with keeping enough neurosurgeons for emergency calls, but the hospital was pushed into a crisis when two of its four neurosurgeons stopped working call. The medical center's troubles are the latest sign of a Florida-wide shortage of medical specialists willing to work emergencies.
Sounds like the world will finally get a look at Google's much-discussed-but-as-yet-unseen plans to get into the health records business. Finally, the company will pull the curtain back on the online service. Patients will be able to enter basic medical data into an online repository, and invite their doctors to electronically submit information as well.
Morton Plant Mease Health Care's is set to open a $9-million free-standing emergency room in Tampa Bay, FL. The freestanding ER is only the fourth in the state, and is designed to provide emergency care in an underserved area. The facility is the latest contribution to Morton Plant CEO Philip Beauchamp's legacy of improving the community's access to medical care, and it also might be one of his last. Beauchamp has announced he will retire in 2009.
Backed by a $2.2 million federal grant and drawing on advice from a task force of experts, Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, is putting in what emergency department chairman Dr. Mark Smith hopes will be a first draft of the emergency department of the future. The ER is designed to handle a sudden influx of mass casualties from a natural disaster, biological attack or a pandemic, and at the same time prevent the hospital-acquired infections.
Allscripts has announced a collaboration between the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative and Google Health to provide physicians a new means of sharing health information over the Internet with their patients. The software is offered at no cost to physicians across America as a key element of NEPSI. Under the collaboration, physicians can use the NEPSI solution to securely transfer their patients' medication information into a Google Health account upon request by the user/patient.
