Scrappy. We’re scrappy (determined, argumentative, and aggressive). “We” as in Iowa Specialty Hospitals and Clinics. I was telling our story of independence and how we’ve been successful throughout the years to a friend, and she said it sounds like an epic quest. I said “what”? “You know, Steve, like going through the battles and emerging victorious on the other side” …
I told her about how this organization was blackballed by bigger hospitals in the past because they didn’t like how we were doing things … to how we (me) were called predatory for hiring staff and opening clinics in different towns … to how rumors were spread regarding our success in recruiting docs and staff. She asked me how that motivated my sense of urgency. I said it was fuel for the fire. I said it felt that we were being bullied and that our success is not because we did things wrong, but rather because we did things right. The bigger hospitals, confused by our success, bullied us to “put us down”.
She then asked how I am moving forward because being angry and feeling bullied isn’t healthy and why am I bringing this up now? I told her because I talked to the company that we were blacklisted at 20 years ago and asked if it would happen again. They said “no, of course not”. Then, I was led to believe that we were the only ones ever to be blackballed. A lot of the victim thought came flooding up, but then I thought of my friend’s comment of an epic quest …
This organization has grown so much over the past 5 years. Huge growth. And as we get bigger, we are naturally doing things differently - like buying the Shopko building and looking at our Materials department in another way. The focus and respect given to Iowa Specialty Hospitals and Clinics on everything from leading the pack on our EMR (Epic) system to how we work together as a system to our success in quality and service is enormous. We are victorious. We are great. Thank you to the bullies for the motivation to go down this path. #scrappy
