I’ve met many clinical and operational leaders across the U.S. and seen how many have become progressively cynical and disengaged when faced with important healthcare reform issues like cost cutting and tight budgets. These clinicians would agree that equally important are quality and safety issues. However, most don’t have the tools available to actually measure that quality or patient outcomes. When clinicians do have access to the ability to measure, and the work together, I’ve seen enormous energy arise as they ask questions they really care about: What is quality? What do we measure? How do we achieve the best outcome?

1. Becoming the Change Agent Your
Healthcare System Needs
By Dr. John Haughom
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Becoming an Agent of Change
Becoming an agent of change in
healthcare is not easy. Working
with clinicians and healthcare
operational leaders across has
exposed two trends.
1. First, discussions dominated
by a common theme — tight
budgets and cost cutting.
2. Second, many clinicians
have become progressively
cynical and disengaged,
distancing themselves from
healthcare reform debates.
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Becoming an Agent of Change
No doubt there is a need to control
costs. But in this focus on cost
cutting, are we forgetting the patient?
Many countries are struggling with
healthcare costs as a major part of
the national budgets for most
industrialized countries.
Costs do need to be managed more
effectively so it is not surprising that
reforms are focused on controlling
the growth of healthcare costs.
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4. Healthcare Quality and Safety Issues
Healthcare also faces quality and
safety issues that are equally
important to patients.
In healthcare, the agents of change
are the clinicians who provide
patient care.
Yet, they often lack the ability to
actually measure the quality of care.
As a result, they don’t always know
what is best for the patient, nor can
they learn because they don’t have
quality and outcomes data.
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5. Healthcare Quality and Safety Issues
Clinicians are discovering that
debating proven practices and using
data to select the most successful
processes are enhancing patient
outcomes.
Continuous improvement can be
rewarding and fun. But requires data
and a willingness to discover tested
practices that work best.
When clinicians work together, they
can agree on what quality is and start
measuring their performance.
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6. Healthcare Quality and Safety Issues
Using data and analysis to drive
continuous improvement is exciting.
If you look at the cost side of the
equation, it turns out that those who
focus on quality frequently have the
lowest costs.
Published studies based on Dr. Jack Wennberg’s
data indicate that if all U.S. healthcare providers
operated at the same level as the top 10 percent
of performers, it would vastly improve care and
lower Medicare costs by about 20 percent.
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7. Healthcare Quality and Safety Issues
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The quality of U.S. healthcare for many
diseases is actually below the average of
other countries based on data from the
international association Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development.
If the U.S. healthcare system focused more
on raising quality just to the level of the
average OECD data, it would improve care
and save the American people $500 billion
a year, representing approximately 20
percent of the annual U.S. healthcare
budget.
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Clinician Groups for Change
Groups of innovative clinicians are
forming, identifying evidence-based
care practices, measuring
outcomes, and continuously
improving care for their patients.
In the process, clinicians are
asking key questions.
Disease by disease, they are
attacking the medical conditions
that afflict humanity, and in the
process improving the value of
patient care.
How can we
continuously
improve
What is
quality?
What
should
we
measure
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How can
we achieve
best
outcomes?

9. In the future, healthcare delivery services
will need to transform themselves in order to
meet the quality, safety and cost challenges
confronting healthcare. They will need to
implement value and clinician engagement
strategies to optimize clinical outcomes and
provide care as efficiently as possible.
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Clinician Groups for Change
Every time clinicians embarks on
this quest, there is enormous
energy in the room and the reform
debate suddenly shifts to what
matters most to both clinicians and
patients: the value of care patients
are receiving.
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10. For the New World of Healthcare, A Declaration of Independence Is Only the Beginning
Dr. John Haughom, Senior Advisor
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More about this topic
The Difficulty of Change
Dr. David A Burton, Former CEO and Executive Chairman
Rising Healthcare Costs: Why We Have to Change
Jared Crapo, Vice President
What Healthcare Executives Can Learn from Military Decision Making
Dale Sanders, Senior Vice President, Strategy
Laying the Foundation for Sustainable Change and Success
View on demand webinar, download slides, or read transcript
John Haughom, MD, Senior Advisor
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For more information:
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12. Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
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John Haughom, MD is an experienced healthcare executive with proven expertise in
technology-enabled innovation, developing results-oriented strategic plans, leading
multifaceted organization-wide change, and directing complex operations. He has a
strong record of turning vision into effective strategies and successfully implementing initiatives
resulting in value including higher quality, safer care at the lowest possible cost. His broad
knowledge of healthcare and emerging healthcare technologies is coupled with his recognized
leadership abilities, strong communication skills, and demonstrated ability to contribute to
organizational goals such as improved clinical outcomes, lower costs, improved access to care,
and increased profitability. After practicing for 15 years as an internist and gastroenterologist, Dr.
Haughom assumed a senior executive role with responsibilities for system-wide automation,
budgeting, customer support, database administration, healthcare delivery, information
technology, quality control, research, safety, and strategic planning. Dr. Haughom became
President and CEO of a firm focused on health care transformation through consulting, strategic
planning, mentoring inexperienced physician leaders, involvement in regional and national
reform movements, membership on boards of leading edge organizations committed to
improving the value of healthcare, and partnership with other like-minded organizations with
similar aspirations and goals. As Senior Vice President of Clinical Quality and Patient Safety for
the premiere health care system in the Northwest spanning three states (Oregon, Washington
and Alaska), Dr. Haughom developed and implemented a system-wide quality improvement
strategy, comprehensive patient safety plan, and comprehensive system-wide information
technology strategy.