UBT

We just returned from the beautiful Northwest Region, where we spent several days visiting with UBT co-leads, Performance Improvement staff, senior leadership and the UBT Resource Team.

We hope you got a chance to attend portions of the Quality Conference. We were in bargaining but have spent some time listening to several of the sessions that are available on-line  through September. It is worth listening to them. One presentation stands out: the Woodland Hills Infusion Center UBT. What an impressive team with some outstanding results!

It’s 1986, on the eve of the NASA launch of Challenger. Imagine that we are witness to the frantic last-minute meetings going on, of assembled teams of NASA engineers and NASA decision-makers. The issue: whether or not it’s safe to launch the space shuttle in cold weather. 

We all know too well what happened. This great tragedy should not have happened. Professor Amy Edmonson used the drama of these events to trigger learning in all of us: Teams have lots of complex barriers to good outcomes…and we must learn how to overcome them.

Do you remember where you were when the Challenger space shuttle exploded?

That horrible day in 1986, when seven crew members—including a beloved school teacher—perished in front of a stunned nation, is a prime example of a team decision that failed miserably, according to Harvard Business School’s Amy Edmonson.

Participants at the Rewards and Recognition workshop this afternoon (March 13) heard how teams that have won Southern California’s quarterly award used the program as inspiration to improve care for Kaiser Permanente members.

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to work with a co-lead or colleague on a certain issue? The information shared at the Leading in Partnership workshop at the 2010 Union Delegate Conference shed some light on this sticky situation.

It’s all about our personality styles.

We recently spent time in Orlando at the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) conference. The annual conference brings together health care innovation leaders from around the country to share ideas and experiences for four days. 

KP’s ground breaking unit-based teams were highlighted at the conference.

That’s right—Hawai’i! We were in Honolulu in July to launch the LMP training and education for the newest partner union,  the Hawai’i Nurses’ Association (HNA), along with managers and physicians in the region. We arrived to HEAT and HUMIDITY! (Maybe flying from Denver, the Mile-High city, down to sea-level had something to do with it.)

We had three full days at the Moanalua Medical Center thanks to Janet Liang, president of the Hawai’i Region, and her team.

We got a front-row seat for the National Quality Conference, which took place in Portland. That is, a virtual front row from Colorado. The Quality group experimented with webcasting this year before the entire conference goes virtual next year. A couple of MDs from the Colorado region joined the conference at different points.

Dan and Paul "on the road" again from Pasadena to San Diego. Everyone had warned of major traffic issues if we didn’t hit the road real early or real late. After two (GPS) recalculations for going the wrong way—due to Dan’s navigational prowess—we were on the right road at 3:30 pm. It took us just over an hour and a half, which surprised us both.

The San Diego leadership team and the Regional LMP were very open in sharing their progress and commitment to unit-based teams. One inpatient UBT set a goal to minimize pressure ulcers. They brainstormed as a team a