EXECUTIVE MASTER OF HEALTH ADMINISTRATION ONLINE

Organizational Culture and Clinical Performance

When it comes to improving patient outcomes and reducing the cost of care, organizational culture and clinical performance play a big role.

Let's explore what organizational culture is, it's impact on executive healthcare leadership, and how The Mayo Clinic's mission statement embodies culture.

What is Organizational Culture?

As Larry Bossidy,  said, “Organizational culture is the sum of its shared values, beliefs, and norms of behavior.”

Culture is the air we breathe. Culture is the water fish swim in.

Culture is “a pattern of shared basic assumptions … to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel…. Thus, its power is derived by the fact that if or when the assumptions are discussed, we do not examine them, but defend them.”

Edgar Schein

Culture and Leadership

Culture determines the criteria for leadership and thus determines who will or will not lead a successful executive healthcare career. It is the unique obligation of leadership to perceive the functional and dysfunctional elements of their culture and to manage it.

Read what C. L. Max Nikias, President of the University of Southern California, has to say about the art of leading people in a column he wrote for the Wall Street Journal’s Expert Leadership column.

Here's the bottom line for leaders:

If leaders do not become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, those cultures will manage them.

Professionalism and Leadership

Professionalism and leadership is based on one’s ability to understand and regulate him- or herself. Yet, it is the leader’s ability to diagnose and manage the culture in an organization that will determine his or her effectiveness and success.

Max DePree, chairman of Herman Miller, said, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”

One way to look at it is the diamond leadership model, which represents the inner resources to be harnessed by current and future leaders.

"Corporate culture is not just a part of the game, it is the game.”

- Lou Gerstner, CEO, IBM

The Mayo Clinic

The Mayo Clinic’s mission statement is to inspire hope and contribute to health and well-being by providing the best care to every patient through integrated clinical practice, education, and research.

The Mayo Clinic’s primary value is that the needs of the patient come first.

The Mayo Clinic Way includes preserving a patient-first legacy, a form of servant leadership, practicing team medicine, hiring for values and talent, and paying attention to clues of quality.

Culture and Care

The social climate in hospital board rooms, operating rooms, and hospital-physician alignment, in their own unique ways, impact the quality of care patients receive.

Because culture is so closely tied to clinical performance, healthcare executives should continue to employ healthcare leadership strategies that improve patient safety and outcomes.

Here are a few statistics:

  1. There are 98,000 deaths in the US from preventable medical errors.
  2. 70% are related to a failure in communication.
  3. 1 of 3 verbal exchanges between MDs and RNs are miscommunications that result in an error in care.
  4. Most quality improvement projects result in little or temporary improvements.

Note: Almost all of these facts are related to behaviors observed daily in healthcare.

Look how leadership and organizational culture impact caregivers and patient care:

Note: This model is adapted to fit healthcare from safety leadership expert Tom Krause.

5 Trustee Governance Best Practices

Dr. Carol J. Geffner, PhD, professor of the Practice of Governance, Management and Policy at USC Sol Price School of Public Policy explores the mounting pressures facing hospital board members and offers 5 governance best practices to mitigate organizational risk.