Fresno’s secret to success

As we come into the home stretch of 2011, we are on track to double the number of high- performing unit-based teams by December. It has us thinking about what structural elements exist in places we consistently find high-performing teams. We find that the facilities with the greatest number of high-performing teams have some consistent ingredients. Our recent visit to the Fresno Medical Center in Northern California demonstrated what facilities with lots of high-performing teams have in common.

Close coordination

One common thread in facilities with many high-performing teams is that performance improvement work is closely integrated with unit-based teams. Our kickoff session in Fresno was presented by UBT Consultant Navneet Maan, Performance Improvement Director Rick Senneway,  Union Partnership Representative Lorie Kocsis and Regional LMP Consultant Debby Schneider,.This group works closely together and is part of Fresno’s LMP Council. In fact, Lorie Kocsis co-chairs the council. Having performance improvement leaders on the council keeps everyone working towards the same goals.

Another group that sits on the LMP council and meets regularly to discuss strategy are operational leaders including Medical Group Administrator Jose De Anda, Vice President/Area Manager Jeff Collins, UHW Field Representative Yvonne Davila and Contract Specialist David Combs. By working so closely together the performance improvement, operations and union leaders are modeling a new way of doing business in Fresno.

Strong sponsorship

All the LMP Council members in Fresno are UBT sponsors. Each member sponsors four or five teams and each team has both a union and management sponsor. The medical center serves about 100,000 members and appears to be a perfect size for this model of sponsorship. This means that all team sponsors attend monthly LMP Council meetings. While this may not work everywhere, it could be an effective practice for some regions or service areas.

To sum up, these three factors make a difference:

• Integration of performance improvement work with the work of UBTs
• Active participation from senior union, operations and performance improvement leaders
• Accountability by the LMP Council for making sure goals are met. For example, some council members were assigned to check in with specific teams following the meeting we observed.

We’ll be back in Fresno second quarter of next year and look forward to hearing about their results. Meanwhile, we’ll look for you and your team on the road.