I'm at an Iowa Hospital Association board event today. We did a strategic planning/hard questions session this morning. It's like taking a bunch of farm animals and asking what everyone likes to eat. Every hospital has different issues and concerns and although it's great to get opinions, it'd be very difficult to satisfy every single person 100%.
Should we always try and solve every issue all the time or should we step back and look at common themes? (I remember when talking with patients regarding upcoming orthopedic surgical procedures and they would say something like "I'd like it to be painless" ... Well, I'd like a full head of hair but that's not going to happen, you'll probably experience short term pain but long term, you'll feel better.)
Setting realistic expectations and solving common big issue items (like poor Medicaid reimbursement) helps pave the way to better engagement. What we came up with in our session was we need to share more stories and work on relationships and experiences in order to build on each other's success. Kind of like what we do at ISH.
