May 17, 2012

On the Road
by Dan Ryan and Paul Staley

At home in Denver for the KP Quality Conference

We got a front-row seat for the National Quality Conference, which took place in Portland. That is, a virtual front row from Colorado. The Quality group experimented with webcasting this year before the entire conference goes virtual next year. A couple of MDs from the Colorado region joined the conference at different points. There would have been no way that they would have flown to another state to attend the entire conference but they did attend some of the sessions on video conference.  

UBTs came up several times and the message from our friends in Sweden continued to focus on team engagement and involvement in solving problems. When we go to meetings being asked about how we might solve a problem, versus being told what to do, engages us tenfold. It continues to baffle us how easy this really is and how much resistance there is to taking the leap of faith and trusting each other. We wonder if people worry about losing their jobs, their positions of “power,” or if the resistance is simply because it has been top down for way so long. We challenge each of you to take the leap of trust.
Paul Staley
Vice president, Operational Initiatives and Performance Improvement, Office of Labor Management Partnership

Dan Ryan
Field director, Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions

Bios
Paul and Dan are intent on helping unit-based teams become the platform for how Kaiser Permanente delivers care. That means focusing on small changes that add up to huge improvements in service, clinical outcomes and cost reductions.
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