!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Streamline Training & Documentation: Everybody Has a Name

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Everybody Has a Name

While I was visiting the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's website to gather the material for yesterday's post, I came upon a particularly compelling example of what a difference it makes when a person is recognized for contributing to a team effort.

It's a tale recounted in an interview by Jack Barker, CEO of Mach One Leadership, a company that specializes in helping healthcare organizations adopt useful safety processes that have been developed in the air travel industry. In talking about feedback concerning the impact of his company's training of healthcare teams, Barker says:
Probably the most encouraging thing we've heard was from a surgeon who adopted some of these behaviors and tools. He uses a team briefing, and he tells a story about how he actually puts the names of everybody involved in the operation on a white board, which even includes the woman who cleans up the OR after the surgery is done. He's had the same cleaning lady for probably the last 4 or 5 years but never knew her first name. The result of this little act was amazing — all of a sudden his OR was getting turned over faster than anyone else's! It was just a simple thing of including the person on the team. And that person truly is part of the team but was never recognized that way before. I think that's pretty powerful to show how a small change can really make a big difference.
###

Labels: