Rewiring Excellence: Hardwired to Rewired by Quint Studer with Dan Collard

Rewiring Excellence: Hardwired to Rewired by Quint Studer with Dan Collard

Becky Fleig, MEd | Member AIAMC Programing Committee; 2024 AIAMC Annual Meeting Planning Committee; and Participant in Multiple National Initiatives

Healthcare is ever-changing. In a post-pandemic era, continuously looking at how operations and patient care should improve and be more efficient is critical for leadership.  Due to staffing shortages, financial headwinds, and increased demand on patient satisfaction, it can be very difficult to identify how to improve these areas with current resources. 

In the book “Rewiring Excellence:  Hardwired to Rewired”, Quint Studer’s message focuses on looking at facts and making decisions about how to move forward using basic tools.  He states, “This is what rewiring is about”.  Continuously looking at what is not working well now but has worked well previously then determining what action is needed to improve.  In fact, Quint Studer’s intent is for the content to be updated regularly as the environment changes.

This book provides so many valuable reminders and insights to leaders about existing, or maybe new tools and techniques.  Here are a couple that resonate the most with me.

Rounding

Building relationships and trust with team members and patients is the foundation to forward progress, whether in work engagement and/or compliance with care plans.  Leaders who conduct regular rounding on their team members identify personal challenges and insights plus what is working well and what support is needed.  It gives team members an opportunity to feel heard and valued in a setting that can be very chaotic.  For patients, having a nurse leader check in on the daily care plan, patient needs, and/or family questions builds confidence in the care being provided.  Both types of rounding builds trust in the outcome and engages those individuals to fully participate in their role.

Recruitment

Recruiting the right people for roles is essential to the success of any team.  Leaders sometimes struggle to find the right approach to interviewing candidates who stay past the first year.  Simple techniques include asking: 

·        Questions that require examples of how skills were used in situations

·        For descriptions of what candidates want in a team and leaders

These asks help to open the view of what type of team member they will be.  It also ensures accurate role expectations are communicated versus just reading a job description. 

Onboarding

The key in retaining new hires is developing an onboarding and orientation process that makes new team members feel welcome and prepared with information and tools needed to do the job.  As a leader, take time to connect and prepare new hires with needed information to arrive to work on Day 1 (eg, parking instructions, where to report, at what time).  It reduces anxiety and starts to form a positive relationship before they ever arrive.  Create an orientation plan that includes experienced team members and those newer to the job so new team members know tenure in the role is a norm. Identify specific, obtainable milestones for the first year to help new hires see the future in simple steps.

In summary

 “Rewiring Excellence:  Hardwired to Rewired” provides easy approaches to opportunities all leaders experience with specific examples used in the healthcare environment.  The ideas challenge you to be open-minded about adjusting your old techniques to fit the current situation.  Most of all, Quint Studer reminds his audience that excellence is not a hardwired process.

Brief Bio of this AIAMC Member

Becky Fleig is the Administrative Director for Medical Education at TriHealth, Inc in Cincinnati, Ohio.  She oversees TriHealth’s Continuing Medical Education (CME) accredited Program, 6 residency programs and 5 fellowship programs with 125 sponsored trainees, and medical and physician assistant student training rotations.  Becky has served as the AIAMC’s Annual Meeting Chair and planning committee member. She has participated in 7 AIAMC national initiatives.  Outside the AIAMC she is a volunteer CME program surveyor for the national and state accreditation bodies.