From the place where I learned that it wasn’t just “patient centered care” ( @ipfcc )….
Wherever I go in health care, I have gotten in the habit of asking these questions:
- Do you have ‘visiting hours’ or can family be present 24/7 in this hospital?
- Does this hospital/health care system have member/patient/family advisory councils?
In fact, I asked these very questions earlier this week at the beautiful Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital ( @HenryFordWBH ) (pictures coming soon).
The answers are not always “yes” and getting to “yes” is both (a) possible and (b) dependent on learning about the experiences of others who have done this. If you can make it to Washington, DC (and why wouldn’t you want to), you’ll get to touch base with the who’s who of health care systems who have done this.
That’s one important piece of knowledge to gain.
The other important piece of knowledge to gain is “what happens when an organization committed to patient and family involvement also walks the walk when it comes to planning its meetings?” I blogged about previously when I noticed that every abstract submission required proof of patient/family involvement (See: Promoting patient and family involvement – image from abstract submission form, Institute for Patient and Family Centered Care @IPFCC | Ted Eytan, MD.
And…one more thing…the conference is not just the conference, it includes an opportunity to learn where health care is delivered. The Institute for Patient and Family Centered Care has also set up hospital tours, of Fort Belvoir Community Hospital and Children’s National Medical Center:
Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, the newest military hospital in the nation, serves as a model for military hospitals around the world. Patient and family advisors participated in the planning for this new facility that opened in 2011. The guiding principles to achieve the hospital’s mission, pursue its vision, and maintain the highest level of quality and service are the Culture of Excellence, Patient- and Family-Centered Care, and Evidence Based Design.
This is also an interest of mine – that when you go somewhere to learn about health care being delivered, that you leave the conference room and learn about it where it is being delivered.
The sad part for me is that I cannot go, only because I have assigned duties at DC Health Data and Innovation Week – however I have no qualms about encouraging people to come to Washington, DC to attend this conference. I will be at Health Data and Innovation Week bringing the lessons that I’ve learned from IPFCC, and in the end, innovation and health data are insignificant without the involvement of patients, people, and their families. There’s going to be crossover, specifically with The Walking Gallery, so it’s possible to do both. See you in Washington!
Photo Friday: Story of incredible innovation – at Hitsville, USA
View Seizing the moment on Flickr.com
I took this photograph right at the moment that my colleague Kristin ( @krisitnjuel ) realized that she had arrived. Soon after, I realized I had arrived, too. What an amazing lesson in innovation there is at the Motown museum ( @motown_museum ).
What happened was that we had just returned from a tour of the Ford Rouge Plant, in Dearborn, Michigan. This plant is a multibillion modern marvel, complete with green room, LEAN production techniques, showcasing the best in American ingenuity on a grand scale.
On our way back to the host venue, after passing the museum multiple times, I agreed to take a quick detour to the Motown Museum. It showed me so much about how incredible innovation, much more than I expected. We learned about how a 30 year-old Berry Gordy connected with the social network of people in their early teens and 20′s, who packed into a small room known as the snake pit, with no air conditioning (it created too much noise), lots of cigarette smoke, and a two track recorder, meaning that each take had to be executed perfectly. Detroit was put on the world map in an era where it shouldn’t have been. When he learned that a DJ would only play 3 songs from a single record label in an hour, he just created new record labels, and moved songs between artists for maximum exposure.
We were standing in the room with photographs like this, where Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson created the greatest hits of their time (and I’ll say of all time). If you know Kristin, you know how much music is a part of her life, and that it’s no surprise she had a tear in her eye as we walked through the space. I may have had a little one, too. Innovation and creativity in a time and place of constraint is emotionally powerful – it’s the triumph of the human spirit.
So that’s the story behind the photograph. My photos of the Ford plant are below. Unfortunately neither Ford nor the Motown museum allow taking pictures inside their production areas.
I wanted to share what we experienced because it will shape dialogues I have about innovation for a long time to come. All of this is available in a little house a block away from the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan, USA.
Oh, PS, see that green line in the parking lot at Ford? We were told that workers that drive Ford vehicles to work are allowed to park their cars on the side of the line that is closer to the plant so they don’t have to walk as far. It made me think, what if the drivers of the Ford vehicles were rewarded with parking farther away from the plant instead
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Posted in Photo Friday | Tagged detroit, ford, hitsville-usa, iln12, LEAN, motown, music, Photos