To download the PDF slides, click here.

To download the self-assessment questionnaire referenced in the presentation, click here.

Date: Thursday, April 19, 2012

Aircraft carriers, electrical power grids, and wildland firefighting, although seemingly different, are exemplars of high reliability organizations (HROs) – organizations that have the potential for catastrophic failure, yet engage in nearly error-free performance. HROs commit to safety at the highest level and adopt a special approach to its pursuit.

High reliability organizing has been studied and discussed for some time in other industries and is receiving increasing attention in healthcare. The essence of high reliability organizing is a set of practices that enable organizations to focus attention on emergent problems and to deploy the right set of resources to address those problems. HROs behave in ways that sometimes seem counterintuitive – they don’t try and hide failures but rather celebrate them as windows into the health of the system. HROs also seek out problems, avoid focusing on just one aspect of work, are able to see how all the parts of work fit together, expect unexpected events and develop the capability to manage them, and defer decision making down to local front-line experts who are empowered to solve problems. Given that health care is also a setting where error has potentially catastrophic consequences, high reliability organizing practices hold promise for improving reliability and safety in health care.

Watch as Dr. Marlys Christianson discusses how the principles behind high reliability organizations can be applied in health care and follow along by completing the self-assessment questionnaire.

For background reading please visit the READ Portal hot topics page.

About the Speaker

Marlys Christianson, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Her research is situated at the intersection of healthcare and organizations. She graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with an MD, became a family physician (both College of Family Physicians of Canada and American Board of Family Medicine certified), and practiced for five years. During that time, she was deeply involved in the development and implementation of patient safety and healthcare quality improvement initiatives. In 2003, she left her medical practice to return to graduate school to study how organizations could be made safer and more reliable. She received a PhD in Management & Organizations from the University of Michigan.

She studies how people work together in high-risk environments (like the emergency department) to effectively update their understanding of changing situations, particularly with respect to how they notice and correct errors. Her research has been published in a variety of outlets, including: Organization Science, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Management Inquiry, and Academy of Management Perspectives.

Event cohosted by CCHL BC Lower Mainland Chapter Maintenance of Certification Attendance at this program entitles certified Canadian College of Health Leaders members (CHE / Fellow) to 1 MOC Category I credit toward their maintenance of certification requirement. Organizing Committee: Paul Gallant, Chapter Executive, CCHL BCLM Linda Peritz, Executive Director, Centre for Health Care Management

Craig Mitton

Francois Dionne

In February/March 2012, Mitton and Dionne led an online workshop for the Centre for Health Care Management called “Priority Setting and Resource Allocation in Health Care”, to teach the basics of these skills.   The workshop was generously sponsored by Pfizer. Twenty-five participants, from all across Canada and beyond, completed four modules over a period of five weeks to learn structured ways of making the best use of scarce health care resources.

An evaluation of participants’ experiences revealed that 73% felt that the workshop covered the topics they wanted to know and 80% found the learning materials interesting and informative.  “I really liked the learning format and was especially pleased with the material which I am now referring to in the workplace regularly. The flexibility, combined with commitments helped me stay on track while making sure I stuck to it.”   Most importantly, all respondents to the evaluation agreed that they have a good understanding of priority setting and resource allocation and that they will use what they have learned from the workshop in their work.

Date: Wedneday, May 16, 2012, 8:30 am – 9:30 am Pacific Time.

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Participation in this event is free.

Please register to participate:

Abstract

In 2011, as part of a CIHR-funded research project, an investigative team from UBC and other institutions carried out an on-line survey of senior decision makers within regional health authorities (and closely equivalent organizations) across all provinces and territories. We received returns from 92 individual managers, from 60 out of 89 organizations in total. The survey asked about structures, processes features and behaviours related to organization-wide resource allocation decisions in the health sector. Decision making rules and procedures, enabling and constraining factors, criteria, participation, evaluation, and internal and external communications were among the topics addressed.

About one-half of respondents indicated that their organization used primarily a formal process for resource allocation, while the others reported that political or historical factors held sway. 70% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Our organization-wide resource allocation process is fair”. Just over one-half assessed their own process as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. This presentation will explore these and other findings in greater detail. We’ll highlight some individual or organizational characteristics which might be significant drivers of resource allocation practice within Canadian healthcare organizations. Implications for senior leaders interested in improving performance will be considered.

For background reading please visit the READ Portal hot topics page.

About the Speaker

Neale Smith is a Study Coordinator with the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation. He is also an Adjunct Professor with the University of Alberta, School of Public Health, and a Member-Scholar affiliated with the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology. He has over 15 years experience in research and evaluation in both practice and academic settings. His current research interests include healthcare policy and politics; public administration and public policy processes and theory; priority setting and resource allocation; health promotion, community development and community capacity building; urban planning, urban sustainability, and links to health promotion and public health; qualitative research and evaluation methodologies; public participation and public engagement; knowledge translation and exchange; and qualitative research synthesis and systematic review methods.

Neale holds an MA in Political Science from the University of Western Ontario and a Masters in Environmental Design (Urban and Regional Planning) from the University of Calgary. He is author or co-author of 25+ peer reviewed articles, and has been principal investigator on research projects funded by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, and Health Canada.

Event cohosted by CCHL BC Lower Mainland Chapter Maintenance of Certification Attendance at this program entitles certified Canadian College of Health Leaders members (CHE / Fellow) to 1 MOC Category I credit toward their maintenance of certification requirement. Organizing Committee: Paul Gallant, Chapter Executive, CCHL BCLM Linda Peritz, Executive Director, Centre for Health Care Management

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Click here to download slides

Dr. Maura MacPhee and her colleague Dr. Samar Hejazi recognize that nursing leadership is essential for providing quality healthcare. Their study of the outcomes of leadership training at the BC Nursing Leadership Institute (BCNLI) was the basis for their seminar on April 4.

Dr. MacPhee described the model of nursing leadership taught at the BCNLI as closely following the LEADS framework developed by Leaders for Life and she outlined several hypotheses about the impact the training would have on both the nurse leaders who attended and the staff whom they managed. A total of 450 nurse leaders attended the BCNLI over several years. MacPhee and Hejazi showed the results of their studies comparing leadership behaviors before and after participation and how those behaviours impacted their staff, demonstrating the value of participation in leadership development training such as that offered by the BCNLI.

Abstract

Nurses comprise the largest sector of the healthcare workforce. They also assume important leadership roles at different organizational levels within a spectrum of healthcare settings. Research has shown that effective nurse leaders are the driving force behind healthy work environments, and healthy work environments are associated with better outcomes for staff, clients and organizations. Effective leadership translates into better staff retention and job satisfaction; lower morbidity and mortality rates for clients; and more cost-effective care delivery  for organizations.

Little is known about the best ways to educate and support effective nurse leaders—nurses are often promoted into leadership roles based on years of clinical expertise. This is especially true for first-line nurse leaders. This entry level into the chain of command is considered critical to nurses, because first-line leaders act as a link between the point of care delivery and administrative decision-making.

This presentation will discuss findings from a 4-year study that examined nurse leader and staff outcomes after leaders’ participation in a nursing leadership development program, the BC Nursing Leadership Institute (BC NLI). This province-wide study was funded through the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. More than 200 novice, first-line nurse leaders from across BC, representing all healthcare sectors (e.g., acute care, community, mental health) participated in a mixed methods study that used a variety of survey tools and interview methods to examine the effectiveness of the BC NLI. The BCNLI is a multi-component program consisting of a residential workshop, an innovation project, mentoring and organizational supports, and an online knowledge network.

Dr. Maura MacPhee was the Principal Investigator of this CHSRF study and she is the Academic Lead for the BCNLI. Dr. Samar Hejazi was a research team member who helped to conduct the quantitative data analyses. They will provide an overview of key study findings, delineating those aspects of the BCNLI that were particularly effective with respect to novice first-line nurse leader development.

About the Speakers

Maura MacPhee, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the UBC School of Nursing. Dr. MacPhee’s research pertains to healthy work environments: the development, implementation and evaluation of key structures and processes related to safe, quality work environments. Her recent research focuses on leadership development and succession planning, with a focus on leader empowerment strategies related to positive outcomes for leaders, staff and patients. She is also involved with researching nurse professional practice models.

Samar Hejazi, PhD, is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia School of Nursing. Dr. Hejazi’s research focus is on exploring different statistical approaches to understanding children’s developmental trajectories. She has investigated developmental trajectories of childhood obesity, the risk and protective factors that are associated with the development of obesity, and family, school, and neighbourhood predictors of school readiness among young children .

Event cohosted by CCHL BC Lower Mainland Chapter Maintenance of Certification Attendance at this program entitles certified Canadian College of Health Leaders members (CHE / Fellow) to 1 MOC Category I credit toward their maintenance of certification requirement. Organizing Committee: Paul Gallant, Chapter Executive, CCHL BCLM Linda Peritz, Executive Director, Centre for Health Care Management

With Dr. Martin Puterman

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Click here for Dr. Puterman’s slides

Abstract

Lean methods date back to the Toyota Production System which was developed shortly after World War II. Of late, they are finding wide spread usage in health care.

In industry, the primary objective of Lean is to enhance corporate earnings, but in health care, Lean seeks to improve patient-centered care and system efficiency. Lean evaluations have tended to be ad hoc, usually focusing on before and after pictures, graphical displays or vignettes. With Lean’s widespread adoption in health care, a framework for its evaluation is sorely needed.

This talk provides guidelines for evaluating a comprehensive Lean program based on insights gained developing a framework to evaluate “imPROVE”, a significant Lean initiative undertaken by the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) in British Columbia. This talk will not present results of the imPROVE evaluation but will focus on concepts, methods and observations.

For background reading please visit the READ Portal hot topics page.

About the Speaker

Martin L. Puterman, PhD, is Advisory Board Professor of Operations in UBC’s Sauder School of Business.  He was founder and director of the Centre for Operations Excellence (in Sauder), the UBC Centre for Health Care Management, and the Biostatistical Consulting Service at BC Children’s Hospital. He is co-principal investigator of the CIHR Team for Operations Research in Quality Cancer Care.

His research focuses on health care operations research especially pertaining to cancer care delivery and decision making, Markov decision processes and statistical modeling of golf performance and PGA tour structure. He has consulted widely on health care operations, statistical modeling, inventory control, forecasting, operations management, program evaluation and management strategy.

Dr. Puterman received the prestigious INFORMS Lanchester Prize for his book Markov Decision Processes. He is an INFORMS Fellow and recipient of the Canadian Operations Research Society (CORS) Award of Merit, the CORS Practice Prize and the INFORMS case prize. He has been an editorial board member of Mathematics of Operations Research, Operations Research, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and The Journal of the American Statistical Association.

He received his PhD in Operations Research and an MS in Statistics from Stanford University and AB in Mathematics from Cornell.

Event cohosted by CCHL BC Lower Mainland Chapter Maintenance of Certification Attendance at this program entitles certified Canadian College of Health Leaders members (CHE / Fellow) to 1 MOC Category I credit toward their maintenance of certification requirement. Organizing Committee: Paul Gallant, Chapter Executive, CCHL BCLM Linda Peritz, Executive Director, Centre for Health Care Management

Friday, February 24, 2012

How do you implement change that improves the quality of care and saves money without disrupting standards of care? Dr. John Øvretveit answered this question in this presentation.

About the Speaker

Dr John Øvretveit

Dr. John Øvretveit is Director of Research and Professor of Health care innovation implementation and evaluation at the Medical Management Centre, The Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, and previously Professor of Health Policy and Management at Bergen University Medical School, Norway and at the Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Translations of some of his 300 peer reviewed scientific papers and books have been made into nine languages. Six books have won publications awards, including twice winner of the European Health Management Association Award and the Baxter health publication of the year prize for “Action Evaluation” (2002) and “Health Service Quality” (1992). He is currently a reviewer for and editorial board member of eight scientific health journals, a board member of the Joint Commission Resources/ International, of the UK NHS national research and commissioning programme for service and delivery and organisation, and advisor since 1995 to The Netherlands Health Service Research Council.

Event co-presented with:

CHCM Communications Coordinator Houston White attended the event and presented a workshop on the successes of CHCM’s communications strategy. In case you missed it, check out BCPSQC’s Cover it Live archive of the day’s hashtag, #socialmediacamp, or take a look at Houston’s presentation below via slideshare.

Last chance to register! – Online Workshop
5 Weeks: April 11, 2012 – May 15, 2012

Register for this workshop.

Background

New social networking practices in health and medicine are changing how health care managers communicate in the digital age. Social media tools such as blogs, wikis, Facebook and Twitter are changing the way we share, collaborate and find solutions to emerging issues in Canadian health care. This online course aims to help Health Care Managers learn how to use these tools effectively for digital communication, organizational branding (reputation management) and the improvement of patient care.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the potential value of social media usage (i.e., opportunities, benefits, risks)

2. Apply social media as part of strategic approaches to:

• Community and stakeholder relations
• Information‐management
• Current awareness of trends and patient needs

3. Recognize how to use social media effectively while mitigating risk (liability), protecting patient confidentiality and intellectual property rights for your health organization

4. Use social media to monitor health services delivery, branding and overall management

Health care managers and executives will get the most out of this workshop by spending 2-3 hours per week reading materials, participating in online discussions and critiquing social media (including case studies from the field).  Activities are done online and participants will be able complete them at a time convenient to them. Class size is limited to 25 to facilitate engagement.

Learning Format

This workshop takes place entirely online.  Each week, participants will watch/listen to online presentations, read articles and view social media content.  Activities related to weekly themes will be completed in small groups (4-5 participants) and shared with the whole group. Content can be viewed and activities completed at any time convenient for participants.  In addition, there will be 4 interactive sessions, where the instructor will be live online to discuss the activities of the previous week and answer questions from participants.  Interactive sessions will be recorded and available on the workshop site for those who are not able to participate live.

Who Should Attend

Canadian health care executives, managers, health professionals with management responsibilities, government managers and policy makers in health care portfolios, and communication specialists.  Others with permission of the instructor.

Dean Giustini

About the Instructor

Dean Giustini has been the biomedical librarian at UBC’s Biomedical Branch Library at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) since 1998.  He blogs at The Search Principle and Open Medicine blog.  He was the Canadian Hospital Librarian of the Year in 2007 and was honoured as the 2009 Tech Evangelist “Mover & Shaker” by LibraryJournal.com.  He teaches courses in social media at the UBC School of Library, Archival and Information Studies and the School of Population and Public Health.

Dates and Duration

April 11, 2012-May 15, 2012

Fee

The cost for this workshop is $ 795.00 (plus HST).

Group rates are available for 3 or more individuals from the same organization. Contact Houston White at houston.white@sauder.ubc.ca or 604-827-4467 for more details.

Cancellation Policy

For Cancellations received:

• At least two weeks before the workshop, you will receive a refund, less a $90 administration fee
• Three days before the workshop, you will receive a refund less a $210 administration fee

No refunds can be provided for cancelations made less than three days before the start of the workshop.  Substitutions are permitted any time up to the start of the workshop.

Social Media for Health Care Managers 2012 Registration

Please complete this form to register for the workshop. When you click "submit" you will be directed to the payment page.

• Name*
  FirstLast
• Email*
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• Phone Number*
• Where do you work?*
  • BC
  • Alberta
  • Saskatchewan, Manitoba
  • Ontario
  • Quebec
  • Atlantic Canada
  • Northern Canada
  • Outside of Canada
• What kind of organization do you work for?*
  • Public sector health care delivery (hospital, health region, health services agency, etc)
  • Government, regulatory or professional organization (ie, professional college or union)
  • Academic
  • Private sector (delivery of care, supplier to health care organizations, consulting, etc)
• What best describes your primary role?*
  • Front-line Manager
  • Director/Executive Director (or equivalent position)
  • VP/CEO
  • Student
  • Faculty
  • Consultant
  • Other

Please contact Houston White at houston.white@sauder.ubc.ca or call 604-827-4467 for information.

With Sandra Robinson

Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Download PDF slides 

Dr. Sandra Robinson has made a career of studying the dark side of human behaviour in organizations.  Her studies, which were conducted in a variety of health care and non-health care settings, focus on bullying, aggression and ostracism behaviour and how those behaviours influence co-workers.

One of Sandra’s main conclusions was that negative behaviours by coworkers has a greater influence on workers’ attitudes and behaviours than management behaviours. Co-workers influence each other through the ways they treat each other in their daily interactions at work and whether we recognize it or not, these interactions have a profound effect on our engagement at work and our ability to do our jobs.

Several of Sandra’s studies were with nurses and she found that negative behaviours were low, and comparable to organizations in other industries.  She speculated about reasons that nursing has the perception of being high in negative behaviours, which might arise by contrasting the treatment of colleagues with the high level of caring for patients.

Sandra also studied ostracism (social exclusion) compared to bullying.  Ostracism undermines our fundamental need to belong to a group and may have more powerful negative consequences in organizations than bullying. Whether they are positive or negative, we all pick up cues and attitudes from our coworkers that have significant influence on our behaviours at work.

For background reading please visit the READ Portal hot topics page.

About the Speaker

Sandra Robinson (Ph.D.) is a Distinguished University Scholar, Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources. Prior to joining UBC, she taught at New York University and Northwestern University in Chicago.

Dr. Robinson’s research expertise focuses on the “dark side” of organizational behavior, including research on bullying, aggression, anti-social behavior, territoriality, toxic handlers, trust betrayal and psychological contract breach.  Her numerous publications have appeared in many journals, such as the Harvard Business Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Academy of Management Journal.  In addition, her work has appeared in a wide range of press outlets, from The Economist, to the Wall Street Journal, to the Washington Post.  She speaks frequently with the press on topics such as stress in the workplace, workplace aggression, and employment relationship issues.  She has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work, such as the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management and the Cummings Scholar Award from the Academy of Management, for her significant contributions to the field of management. She recently completed her five year service as Chair for the Organizational Behavior Division of Academy of Management, the 18,000 member international organization for management scholars.

For over a decade, Dr. Robinson has been providing management education to undergraduates, MBA students, PhD students and executives on three different continents. She was appointed by the Premier of British Columbia to serve as a commissioner determining the compensation for elected Members’ of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. She has also provided training and consulting to a wide variety of organizations, ranging from non-profits, such as the Casey Foundation (Seattle), to government, to public service organizations such as the United States Postal Service (Washington, D.C.), to private enterprises, such as Futureshop (Vancouver) and Citibank (New York City).

Event cohosted by CCHL BC Lower Mainland Chapter Maintenance of Certification Attendance at this program entitles certified Canadian College of Health Leaders members (CHE / Fellow) to 1 MOC Category I credit toward their maintenance of certification requirement. Organizing Committee: Paul Gallant, Chapter Executive, CCHL BCLM Linda Peritz, Executive Director, Centre for Health Care Management

http://read.chcm.ubc.ca/2012/02/15/public-service-for-ontarians-a-path-to-sustainability-and-excellence-commission-on-the-reform-of-ontarios-public-services/.