One of ACHE’s key strategic priority areas is to amplify the importance of safety and provide the tools and strategies healthcare leaders need to foster zero-harm workplace cultures and environments. ACHE and the IHI Lucian Leape Institute developed Leading a Culture of Safety: A Blueprint for Success, a guide that can be used to direct efforts and evaluate an organization’s success on its journey to zero harm, by convening more than 50 highly regarded healthcare executives and quality and safety experts.

Visit ache.org/Safety and download the Blueprint. Then, on that same page, you can also sign the Pledge to Lead for Safety and take the Culture of Safety Organizational Self-Assessment as steps toward implementing impactful, systemic change.

July is a great time to join ACHE. New members or former members whose membership lapsed in 2018 or earlier can join for $80, which is 50 percent off the regular dues rate. In addition, any Member, Fellow or Faculty Associate can earn points for rewards through the Leader-to-Leader Rewards Program. The ACHE member must be listed as the referral name on the new member application and will receive the points once the memberships are activated. Check out the rewards you can receive when you redeem your points.

Please note that this offer is not available for members suspended in 2019.

Creating a unifying vision for their organizations is a fundamental skill for leaders. However, building that vision has become more associated with top-level leadership than with directors, managers and others throughout the organization. Consider these critical vision-creation opportunities, each of which can propel your professional development:

Helping the CEO Shape the Company’s Vision

Good senior leaders know they are missing critical information as they are typically removed from many customer experiences and operational realities. Being a conduit of the insights and experiences of others who will be touched by the work can help senior executives improve that sense of connection. Further, raising your hand to volunteer your own perspective in collective problem-solving opportunities helps you develop your own vision-creation abilities.

Translating the Company Vision to Make it Relevant for Your Team

Even if you do not have the chance to help shape early drafts of your company’s vision, if you are a leader at any level, you will likely be directed to work with your team to translate that vision. Though on a smaller scale, this in itself is “vision crafting” and it will benefit from the same kind of broader perspective senior leaders themselves will want to seek. Even if you are simply “translating” vision from the upper part of the organization, take some time to solicit ideas from other parts of the company that also have a stake in your unit’s performance aspirations, being sure to crosscheck your translation with those senior leaders guiding the overall vision.

Catalyzing Your Own Vision

Sometimes a new company vision does not begin in the C-suite, but instead bubbles up from lower-level leaders already using it to drive innovation and change in their own units. Your organization may not be ready for—or even sympathetic to—bottom-up vision development. However, the need for continual innovation in today’s operating climate may give you the opportunity to promote new ideas from your own local experiences that can demonstrate potential for broader growth and even reinvention in your company.

Getting Yourself Into the Vision Game

Here are a few tips to position yourself for vision-building moments:

1. Get a clear idea on what a vision is and why it matters. Do not confuse vision (an aspirational picture of future success) with mission (why an organization exists), values (the principles and moral beliefs by which the organization chooses to operate) or strategy (the decisions about where and how to compete that bring a vision to life).
2. Watch for opportunities to contribute. Contribute to the vision-work underway by other leaders. Translate an agreed upon enterprise vision down to the unit you are leading, or focus the work of your team on a local or regional vision. Catalyze innovative change for the organization based on some front-line innovation in which you are involved.
3. If you find a vision-building opportunity, do not do all the deciding alone. Just as a senior leader might benefit from seeking your contributions to a major corporate vision, share the process with others working with you in any of your own vision-building. It will sharpen your collaboration skills as well.
4. Learn by watching or studying how others go about the vision-building process. Talk to other leaders about visions they have developed to understand how and why those visions turned out the way they did. Study visions of companies documented in the business press or learn from partners or clients about the visions they have for their organizations. You will better understand what makes for successful vision-building, which you can then bring to the next opportunity in your own organization.

Because developing a vision for an organization sets the stage for strategy and higher performance, it will always be seen as an essential capability for top leaders. However, this does not mean that vision is always above your paygrade. Visioning requires practice, and there is no better way to get that practice than by building your craft through smaller or sudden opportunities to make a contribution that comes your way.

—Adapted from “You Don’t Have to Be CEO to Be a Visionary Leader,” by Ron Ashkenas and Brook Manville, Harvard Business Review, April 4, 2019.

Today, hospitals are struggling to hold onto their outpatient business in the face of new competitors that have the scope and technological capability never before seen in healthcare.

UnitedHealth/Optum and CVS Health/Aetna are aiming to unbolt outpatient business from legacy hospitals. Amazon, Apple and Google are investing heavily in healthcare from numerous angles, looking for the most effective entry points to care and services. Hospital organizations are doing what any company would do when confronted with a highly disruptive environment like this: They are trying to gain the financial and intellectual resources to compete in a new world.

Hospitals are making this transition in the face of a difficult financial reality. Moody’s Outlook for 2019 projected that revenue growth for hospitals would continue to decline under pressure from weak inpatient volume and low reimbursement payments. At the same time, expenses would continue to grow faster than revenue. In this situation, the normal response of any company in any industry would be to seek scale in an effort to meet this new level of competition and adjust to a emerging business model. That is exactly what is happening among hospital stakeholders. “Bulking up” is a logical response.

Organizations need to grow along with everyone else. Scale will help ensure that America’s hospitals can keep pace—that they can continue to build on their deep community connections, expertise treating the full range of health conditions and history of serving our most vulnerable populations.

Scale will be critical, but it is not an end in itself. Scale is a means to gain intelligence—to get the best intellectual capital, to tap information about a vast group of people, to test new ideas and then to scale those ideas. Nevertheless, scale is the platform that will allow hospitals to acquire the resources—such as more working and intellectual capital, and significant digital capabilities—to compete in this brand new healthcare marketplace.

—Adapted from “Why Hospitals Must Seek Scale,” by Kenneth Kaufman, KaufmanHall.com, Dec. 20, 2018.

Authors can submit proposals to present their research at the annual Forum on Advances in Healthcare Management Research during next year’s Congress on Healthcare Leadership. The lead presenter of each selected proposal will receive a complimentary registration to Congress. Please visit ache.org/Congress/ForumRFP.cfm for the selection criteria and submission instructions. Submit your abstract, of up to 400 words, by July 10.

When you share the value of your ACHE membership with colleagues, you not only help advance the profession but can earn rewards as well.

Each time you encourage someone to join ACHE or help them earn their FACHE^® you receive a reward point through the Leader-to-Leader Program. The more reward points you collect, the more rewards you can receive. When you help grow ACHE, you not only make a strong statement about your professionalism and leadership in the healthcare field, but you strengthen the organization. For more information visit ache.org/L2L.

The Healthcare Consultants Forum Member Directory is an excellent resource to help identify a consultant who meets your needs and has a specific area of expertise. The consultants listed in the directory are members of ACHE and its Healthcare Consultants Forum and have agreed to be contacted by those seeking more information about their services.

Please contact Liz Catalano, marketing specialist, at ecatalano@ache.org or 312-424-9374 for more information.

Where were you at in your career when you joined ACHE?

I joined ACHE as I was transitioning my career from direct patient care to a leadership role. I had 10 years experience as a Sonographer and had just taken a new role as an Outreach Representative for HSHS St. Vincent Hospital. It was a complete change in direction for my career.

Where are you now in your career?

I now have 5 years experience as a leader and am gaining experience and confidence as the Director of Business Development and Telemedicine for my division. Two years ago I had the opportunity to expand my role and lead our telemedicine program. I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to expand my career and gain new leadership experience in multiple areas.

How have you been involved with ACHE-WI?

Leadership Development Program

How has ACHE been valuable to your career progression?

ACHE has been valuable to my career progression by allowing me the tools to plan for a career in healthcare leadership and meet other leaders. I completed the Leadership Development program in 2017-2018 and thoroughly enjoyed the experience to network with other aspiring leaders, learn about their career paths and organizations. It made me reflect on my journey and also set goals for my future.

Who has been the most influential person in your career?

The most influential person in my career was my program director for the Diagnostic Medical Sonography Program at Northcentral Technical College. She saw potential in me and challenged me to continually look for growth opportunities. During that time, she was in graduate school and had her own career aspirations. I was able to see her passion and hard work. She inspired me to continue to work hard and not be afraid of new challenges. She is now the President at Mid-State Technical College. It has been fun to watch her achieve such great success in her career. It shows me that hard work and dedication can truly pay off.

What is something that you are working on recently that you are excited about?

I am excited to lead telemedicine services for my division. We are offering new telemedicine programs to multiple locations throughout Northeast WI and the UP of MI. It is fun to be leading a new initiative and be involved from the beginning to build it from the ground up. I am also excited to be on the WHA Telemedicine Work Group where we are working to help expand telemedicine in WI including expanding reimbursement for telemedicine services in WI.

Tell me about a hidden talent of yours.

A hidden talent that I have is that I love gluten free cooking. My husband and daughter both eat gluten free so I have had to learn to cook gluten free. I enjoy taking non gluten free recipes and converting them so that my family can eat them while making sure they still taste delicious. This includes baking my own bread and making homemade ravioli. My goal is to have people eat my cooking and not know that it is gluten free.

While Wisconsin and other states have made progress snuffing out cigarette smoking, youth vaping is on the rise. One in five high school students regularly used e-cigarettes in 2018, a more than 150 percent jump from four years prior. That’s according to a recent report from the Department of Health Services, who considers the rise an epidemic. What led to this rise? And what are its overall health implications? What’s being done to address the issue? A Wisconsin Health News panel on July 9 in Madison will tackle these questions and more.

Panelists:

• Jeanne Ayers, Public Health Division Administrator, Department of Health Services
• Andre Jacque, R-DePere
• James Meyer, Pediatrician, Marshfield Clinic Health System
• Dona Wininsky, Director of advocacy, grassroots and patient engagement, American Lung Association of Wisconsin

Registration now open (link).

Members only have until June 30 to take advantage of this offer. Take the next important step in your career advancement by becoming board certified in healthcare management as Fellows of ACHE. Now is the perfect time for to apply. Between now and June 30, they can save $200 on the Board of Governors Exam fee.

The June 30 deadline is fast approaching, so visit ache.org/FACHE to apply conveniently online and learn more about the offer, details on requirements and Exam study resources.