Collaborative networks created to improve care delivery are growing.

Here is the most recent example from Fierce Healthcare (and another example of “getting it“):

A group of nineteen New England hospitals have joined together in a network allowing them to share information about clinical practices and boost their quality improvement efforts. The hospitals are starting by focusing on preventing and reducing the incidence of pressure ulcers. The hospitals will share this information through a “Rapid Adoption Network” sponsored by VHA Inc. The hospitals will be using VHA’s clinical blueprint to mount their pressure ulcer reduction efforts.

Collaboration!

Maybe defining “getting it” would be easiest through the use of examples.

Here is the first.  From The Washington Post:

Is it ironic that the industry we trust to protect our health is releasing substances that may be tied to cancer, diabetes and other illnesses? Many health-care professionals think so.

In recent years, some have begun to think greener. Most efforts focus on reducing toxic waste from hospitals and medical offices as well as cutting back on water and energy use. But some doctors and health workers are also considering changes in their practices that could enhance environmental and patient health.

Read about Inova Fairfax Hospital is doing to make their operations greener.  Oh yeah, it’s saving money at a time when margins are being squeezed, too.  From the article:

“There are major parts of the building that never shut down,” said Cindy Kilgore, assistant vice president of materials management at Inova Fairfax Hospital. “We have to have a certain airflow, have to stay at a certain temperature, so there are unique things that make [cutting energy use] more complicated.”

Still, Inova has come up with some cost-saving answers. After its five hospitals completed energy audits last month, they turned off the lights in their vending machines. Kilgore said that simple change will save about $15,000 a year. More changes will come once Inova has had a chance to analyze the audit’s findings, she said.

Inova is also exploring the feasibility of a system that would shut down nonessential computers each night. And before the summer landscaping season ends, Kilgore said, Inova Fairfax hopes to use leftover oil from its cafeteria fryers to make biodiesel for its lawn mowers.

Erik Karjaluoto at ideasonideas has a wonderfully entertaining post on a recent back-and-forth he had with a public relations firm.

The moral of the story: the world changes, and yesterday’s way of doing things don’t always continue to work.  Instead of adapting, some people keep trying the old ways over and over and over.  They just don’t get it.  You can imagine the success rate of such a ploy.

The problem happens in every industry.  Think Medicare’s fee for service in health care.  Sure, CMS tries new iterations of the payment system but the meat of the approach continues as it has for years.  What we’re left with is the problems of yesterday, only worse.

This can happen at an organizational level, too.  A favorite notion of health care folk is that change is constant.  A traditional approach to the health care change issue is to ignore it until ignoring the problem manifests into something requiring action.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…hurry up and solve.  Example given: the primary care shortage, er crisis.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Organizations that “get it” and make proactive attempts to embrace change can be successful in this hectic, ever-evolving world.

“Getting it” is difficult to define.  The problem with a definite definition of “getting it” is that it’s much easier to describe what it’s not.

Eric writes this about those who don’t, “Again, the problem is that they’re completely stuck in an old paradigm.”

There’s a way around not getting it, and that’s to get it.  Prophetic.

Realistically, the solution is diversity.  Diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, diversity of background, diversity of experiences, diversity of race, diversity of age.  Diversity etc.  Having all these people around influencing individual decision making will improve your organization’s chances of not getting stuck in an old paradigm.

Here’s the secret: utilize that diversity.  The dialog created between all this diversity will help an organization “get it.”  Listen to those with dissenting views, they may be right.

Principle #28: It all comes back to this: You either get it or you don’t.  Getting it means incorporating diversity.  It means being proactive toward change, listening to dissenters.  It means learning never stops.  Just because something worked yesterday has no bearing on its effectiveness today.  Organizations must approach each day with this notion in mind.  And we’ll do that at Our Own System.