Chapter 1: Office-Level Healthcare Leaders: Who They Are and What They Do
1.2 Healthcare Leaders: A Definition
1.3 Healthcare Leaders: A Significant Part of the Workforce
1.4 Types of Healthcare Leaders
1.5 Healthcare Leaders Are a Diverse Group of People
1.6 Where Do Office-Level Healthcare Leaders Fit In?
1.7 Office-Level Healthcare Leaders: The Most Important Cogs in the Corporate Wheel
1.9 Healthcare Organizations Often Do a Poor Job of Training Office-Level Leaders
1.10 A Case In Point: What Does One Do with a Well-Connected but Troublesome Employee?
1.11 Many Office-Level Healthcare Leaders Do Not Learn Proper Management Skills in School
1.12.1 Healthcare Organizations Have Sometimes Espoused the Mantra of “Just Good Enough”
1.13.2 A Case in Point: Bad Management Practices in the Emergency Room
1.14.1 Factors That Are Pressuring Healthcare Organizations to Become More Efficient and Effective
1.14.2 Healthcare Organizations Respond: Growing Focus on Best Practices Management and CI
1.15 Summing Things Up and Looking Ahead to Chapter 2—A Brief Synopsis of Key Leadership Ideas
Chapter 2: A Brief Synopsis of Key Leadership Ideas
2.2 Understanding Office-Level Healthcare Leaders by Analyzing the Forces That Motivate Them
2.2.1 Self-Interests Play a Role in Office-Level Healthcare Leaders’ Decisions
2.3 A Typical Administrator’s Ethical Beliefs: An Amalgam of Self-Interests and Duties
2.4 The Intense Desire to Leave a Legacy
2.6 Strict Autocratic Management Styles
2.7 Today’s Office-Level Healthcare Leaders: The Old Management Styles No Longer Work as Well
2.8 Today’s Office-Level Healthcare Leaders Wear Many Hats
2.9 Best Practices Leadership Ideas
2.9.1 The Office-Level Healthcare Leader: First Among Equals
2.9.2 Key Tenets That Derive from the “First Among Equals” Doctrine
2.10 Good Healthcare Administrators Possess Strong Emotional Intelligence Skills
2.11 Managing and Motivating Workers: A Focus on Contracts
2.12 The Benefits of Using Best Practices Management Techniques
Chapter 3: A Primer on Continuous Improvement, Lean, and Six Sigma in the Healthcare Workplace
3.3 The Differences between CI and Organizational Churn
3.4 Key Steps in the CI Process
3.5 CI-Focused Corporate Cultures: Reviewing the Past, Monitoring the Present, and Controlling the Future
3.5.3 Forward-Looking Analyses
3.7 CI Immersion: The Three-Level Perspective
3.9 The Key Philosophical and Methodological Differences between Lean and Six Sigma
3.10 It Makes Sense for Healthcare Organizations to Utilize Both Lean and Six Sigma
3.11 A Case in Point: The Emergency Room Staff Become More Efficient and Effective
3.12 Delving a Little Deeper into Lean’s Key Focus: Streamlining Work Processes by Eliminating Waste
3.13 Using the Five S’s as a Means to Understand Lean Principles
3.14 Key Tools in the Lean Arsenal
3.14.1 The SIPOC Diagram: A High-Level View of a Process
3.14.2 Using Spaghetti Diagrams to Track Movement
3.14.3 Creating Deployment Flowcharts in Order to Identify Process-Related Bottlenecks and Waste
3.14.4 The Value Stream Map: A Lean Staple
3.16 Key Tools in Six Sigma’s Arsenal
3.16.1 Using a Fishbone Diagram to Get to the Root Causes of the Problem
3.16.2 The Pareto Chart: A Way to Determine Which Causes Are Most Important
3.16.3 Managing Variance with Statistical Control Charts
3.17 Key Principles that Both Lean and Six Sigma Have in Common with Each Other
3.17.2 Keep It Simple When Possible
3.17.3 Workers Need to Be Engaged, Flexible, and Adaptive
4.2 High-Performing Healthcare Organizations Create Cultures that Support CI
4.3 The Entire Organization Needs to Get Behind CI Initiatives
4.4 Healthcare Organizations: The Challenges of Diversity
4.7 Ways to Encourage Employees to Inculcate the Organization’s Mission, Vision, and Values
4.9 Creating an Amicable Work Environment
4.10 Answer the “Why” Questions
4.11 The Flaws Are Systemic and Not Personal
4.12 Embrace HITs When Possible
4.13 A Belief That the Best Days Are Not Behind but in Front
4.14 Summing Things Up and Looking Ahead to Chapter 5—In the Trenches: Departmental-Level Strategies for Creating and Maintaining a Culture of Continuous Improvement
5.3 From the Point of View of CI: Key Aspects of a Dysfunctional Culture
5.4 A Case in Point: A Dysfunctional Claims Department
5.5 High-Performing Cultures Embrace Some Employee-Related Inefficiencies
5.6 Cultures that Support CI: Key Employee-Related Traits and Perspectives
5.7 Employee Self-Confidence Is a Key Trait in a CI-Focused Workplace
5.8 Structured Autonomy Is a Necessary Aspect of a CI-Supportive Culture
5.9 Satisfied Employees Are Critical to the Success of CI Initiatives
5.10 Motivated Workers Are a CI-Focused Administrator’s Most Important Asset
5.11 Team Players Are an Integral Part of Any CI Strategy
5.11.2 Ways to Foster a Culture That Supports Cooperative Behaviors
5.11.3 Team-Based Strategies: Additional Comments for Office-Level Healthcare Leaders
5.11.4 Keeping Track of Workers’ Team-Related Strengths and Weaknesses
5.12 Employee Loyalty: A Key Part of Any CI-Supportive Culture
5.13 Trust: The Glue That Holds Every CI Project Together
5.14 Employee Adaptability: Critical to the Success of Many CI Implementation Strategies
5.15 Additional Employee-Related Skills That CI-Focused Administrators Should Covet
Chapter 6: A Guide to Implementing and Monitoring Quality Improvement Initiatives
6.2 Some General Tips for Improving a Department’s Efficiency and Effectiveness
6.7 The Ideas Generation Stage
6.7.1 Clearing Up an Ambiguity: Causes versus Problems
6.7.2 Get to Know the Relevant Technologies and Employee Workflow Processes
6.7.3 Review Relevant Data and Talk to Key Stakeholders
6.7.5 Developing the “Problems to Tackle” List
6.8.1 Go into the Meeting with a Clear Strategy and Do Not Forget about Secondary Goals
6.8.2 Tailor the Presentation to Offset Supervisor or Peer-Related Weaknesses
6.9.1 Cooperation from Management and Frontline Staff Is Important
6.9.2 Ways to Induce Employee Cooperation
6.12 Allocate Some Time for Self-Reflection
Chapter 7: How to Make the Right Decisions When One Does Not Have the Time to Plan
7.2 A Healthcare Administrator’s Workday: Hectic and Somewhat Unpredictable
7.3 “In the Moment”: A Healthcare Supervisor’s Ad Hoc Decisions Can Make All of the Difference
7.5 Continuous Self-Improvement
7.6 Building the Right Mental Maps: The Key to Making the Best Ad Hoc Decisions
7.7 Constructing Internal Mental Maps
7.8 Creating Game Plans for Dealing with the Most Common Office-Related Ad Hoc Occurrences
7.9.1 Managing Ad Hoc Interactions by Controlling the Office Environment and Focusing on Formal Power Arrangements
7.9.2 The Most Effective Office-Level Healthcare Leaders Can Handle Almost Any Ad Hoc Situation
7.9.3 Self-Awareness Is the Key to Identifying Personal Weaknesses and Ameliorating These Flaws
7.11 Protect Stakeholders’ Privacy
Chapter 8: Promoting a Vibrant Office Culture: Suggestions for Healthcare Administrators
8.2 The Typical Healthcare Administrator’s Important Office-Related Objectives
8.3 The Healthcare Supervisor’s Key to Success: Maintaining a Vibrant Office Culture
8.4 Some of the Important Benefits of Creating a Vibrant Office Culture
8.5 Focus on Developing the Right Infrastructure
8.6 Three Types of Workers: Habitual Complainers, Cheerleaders, and Fence Sitters
8.6.1 Strategies for Successfully Managing Habitual Complainers
8.6.2 Encourage the Office Cheerleaders: They Are the Administrator’s Champions
8.6.3 The Fence Sitters Serve as the Office’s Cultural Barometer
8.7 Controlling the Narrative: An Important Part of Creating a Vibrant Office Culture
Chapter 9: Developing and Enforcing Departmental Rules and Regulations
9.3 A Healthcare Department’s Regulations Help to Define and Influence Its Culture
9.4 Office-Level Mandates: Bulwarks Against Negative Outside Influences
9.5 A Guide to Enforcing Externally Created Regulations
9.6 Suggestions for Creating Effective and Fair Office-Level Policies
9.7 Tips for Successfully Implementing and Enforcing Office-Level Rules
9.8 Summing Things Up and Looking Ahead to Chapter 10—A Recap
10.4 Key Factors That Motivate Healthcare Administrators (Chapter 2)
10.5 Comparing Strict Autocratic Methods to Best Practices Management Styles (Chapter 2)
10.6 Defining and Describing CI (Chapter 3)
10.7 Comparing and Contrasting Lean and Six Sigma (Chapter 3)
10.8 Key Attributes of Organizational Cultures That Support CI (Chapter 4)
10.9 Suggestions for Fostering CI-Supportive Organizational Cultures (Chapter 4)
10.11 Key Aspects of High-Performing Office Cultures (Chapter 5)
10.12 Some General Tips for Improving a Department’s Efficiency and Effectiveness (Chapter 6)
10.16 Defining and Describing a Vibrant Office Culture (Chapter 8)
10.19 Developing and Enforcing Departmental Rules and Regulations (Chapter 9)