56H - The CEO Imperative: Leading a Relentless Focus on Consumers and the Workforce

Tuesday, March 21

2:00–3:00 p.m.

The term consumerism is not new to the healthcare industry, but it is beyond time to elevate it to the North Star around which hospitals and systems organize themselves to improve quality, lower costs and ensure that the right care is provided at the right time and place in a coordinated way.

Prioritizing the needs and interests of the healthcare workforce is a twin challenge for meeting consumer demands for personalized and connected care. We must look to the preferences and concerns of our workforce to ensure that the diverse needs of physicians and staff are met within a welcoming and rewarding environment that prioritizes consumer-focused care.

Discussion topics will set these twin challenges in the context that healthcare organizations exist to serve patients in ways that honor who they are and how they wish to access healthcare, with that experience provided by a workforce that is engaged in and shares that commitment to consumer-centered care. Presenters will detail how to determine the main pain points consumers and the workforce are experiencing, moving from thinking to doing, which actions and strategies can be implemented immediately, how to avoid unintended consequences, and the importance of building a leadership team that is eager to serve the community.

This session will also include a discussion of a concept researched and developed at MIT called the capability trap. This framework advises that decisions made during crises can create vicious cycles that fail to invest in capabilities for the future, leading to poor performance and even organizational failure. Alternatively, crises also create opportunities for organizations to make bold decisions that set them on a path of innovation and transformation.

Learning Objectives

• Communicate the urgency and necessity of pivoting healthcare delivery toward a frictionless experience for consumers that sustains quality, lowers costs and meets needs.
• Discover the capability trap, the work harder/work smarter paradigm and their implications for decisions facing CEOs.