‘We’re with you’

Delegates at the “We’re With You” workshop engaged in a freewheeling discussion with four frontline leaders whose main message was summed up in the workshop name. 

Shawn Dufford, MD, director of peri-operative services in the Colorado region; Walter Allen, executive director of OPEIU Local 30;  Martha Gilmore, medical group administrator at the South San Francisco Medical Center, and Howard Fullman, MD, medical director of the West LA Medical Center, shared practical tips with participants—many of them UBT co-leads. 

Dr. Fullman had these suggestions for huddles:

• Rotate the leader of the huddle. Try having a patient lead one!
• Use them as a forum for sharing stories.
• Make sure that they address the issues of the team, not just the leaders.
• Bring food.

Walter Allen reminded participants that partnership and unit-based teams are very different from the norm in corporate America, within the labor movement and in medicine. He pointed out that making this exciting experiment in quality care and service successful is important not just to KP, but to the country.

Dr. Dufford, a performance improvement expert, noted that physicians are gradually becoming more involved in UBTs. As UBTs achieve more and more clinical successes, docs are being won over, and their participation will become more prevalent. 

Martha Gilmore says the experience in South San Francisco has shown that UBTs are the best way to run KP: They prove that getting the people who do the work involved in decisions is the best way to produce high quality patient care.