Last week the Institute of Medicine released a thought provoking report on both the status of the healthcare system and how things could be improved. They talked about the complexity of the system, the huge cost concerns and the less than desired outcomes from all this spend. More importantly, they discussed a wide variety of ways to improve the system. Take a look at the recommendations to get a feel for those things suggested by their panel.
The concept of continuous learning has been in vogue for many years and I think it is perhaps a good time to revisit the principles. The idea is that skills and systems are needed to allow for an organization and its people to constantly be able to improve their skills and systems in order to allow the entity to always be growing. Analysis is needed to determine where improvement is needed and this needs to be ongoing and built into the fabric of everyday work. We must learn from both our successes and failures. This must be active and ongoing. It is not a one time seminar but rather a way of doing business or a way of living.
One of the most powerful ways to learn is to look outside the current industry for examples or models that could be emulated for improvement. Take a look at this graphic put out by the IOM based on their report. Why can’t a patient’s information be handled similar to their online banking reports? Why isn’t safety in medicine treated like airline safety? We all see the trend towards factory-line protocols but why hasn’t this happened even faster? Why can’t we make pricing as clear as what you get on the travel websites where transparency leads to lower costs? Take a look at all the ideas as they provide a blueprint for how things have begun and will continue to move forward.
It is good to look at the issues and possible solution routes for the industry, but perhaps it is just as important to consider the concept of continuous learning from a more personal perspective. How much time and effort do you spend every day trying to figure out how to get better doing what you do? Do you have a realistic personal inventory of your skills and those things that need to be improved? When you complete a project do you take time to analyze what went right and what could have been done better? Do you formalize procedures and actually write down what you have learned? Are you constantly looking for better ways to do things, perhaps even looking for models outside your company or even our industry?
It is important to recognize that learning is like putting money in the bank. The more you learn the more you will have to draw upon when you reach difficult times or are faced with big problems. I love the story of the marketing person who after wasting $50 million on a failed project was summoned to the CEOs office. When the marketing person got there she asked if she was going to get fired. The CEO replied by saying why would I fire someone I just spent $50 million educating!
Learning is an active, not passive, process. It takes planning, work and constant evaluation. Take some time to consider how simple solutions seem to fix the healthcare system and then realize that many of the same principles could be applied to your own personal learning and development. Think about it.