In her groundbreaking book The Southwest Airlines Way, Jody Hoffer Gittell revealed the management secrets of the company Fortune magazine called “the most successful airline in history.” Now, the bestselling business author explains how to apply those same principles in one of our nation’s largest, most important, and increasingly complex industries. High Performance Healthcare explains the critical concept of “relational coordination”—coordinating work through shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect. Because of the way healthcare is organized, weak links exist throughout the chain of communication. Gittell clearly demonstrates that relational coordination strengthens those weak links, enabling providers to deliver high quality, efficient care to their patients. Using Gittell’s innovative management methods, you will improve quality, maximize efficiency, and compete more effectively. High Performance Healthcare walks you step by step through the process of: Identifying weak areas of relational coordination within your organization Transforming work practices that are creating barriers to relational coordination Building a high performance work system to foster consistent relational coordination across all disciplines The book includes case studies illustrating how some healthcare organizations are already transforming themselves using Gittell’s proven tools. It concludes by identifying industry-level obstacles to high performance healthcare and showing how individual organizations and their leaders can support sweeping change at the highest levels. Policy changes and increased access to care will not alone answer the healthcare industry’s problems. Timely, accurate, problem-solving communication that crosses all organizational boundaries is a powerful response to business as usual. High Performance Healthcare explains exactly how to achieve this crucial dynamic, providing a long-awaited cure to an industry in crisis.

A guide to using positive organizational change to do more with less, from the acclaimed author of The Southwest Airlines Way. Whether from customers, supply-chain partners, policymakers, or regulators, organizations in virtually every industry are facing calls to do more with less. They are feeling compelled to provide higher-quality outcomes, more rapidly, at a lower cost. This book offers a road-tested approach for delivering these outcomes through positive organizational change. Its message comes just in time—for too many companies have gone the way of low-road strategies, such as cutting pay and perks, and working harder not smarter. Drawing on her pathbreaking research, Jody Hoffer Gittell reveals that high performance is fundamentally relational—rooted in both human and social capital. Based on this insight, she provides a unique model that will help companies build meaningful relationships among colleagues, develop smarter work processes, and design organizational structures fit for today’s pressure test. By following four organizations on their change journeys, she illustrates how “relational coordination” unfolds in real-world settings. In addition, tools for change guide readers as they learn how to implement this new model in their own workplaces.

This new, Second Edition of The Interprofessional Health Care Team: Leadership and Development provides the much-needed knowledge base for developing a relational leadership style that promotes interdisciplinarity, interprofessionalism, and productive teamwork. It describes possibilities and options, theories, exercises, rich references, and stimulating questions that will inspire both novices and experts to think differently about their roles and styles as leaders or members of a team.

Context is a central concept in organization and management studies, yet it is often used in a generalized, unspecific manner. This book offers an interactionist view on context as a dynamic, relational, and socially enacted phenomenon. It explores context in action and the theoretical, methodological, and analytical consequences of this approach through a collection of reflections and research experiences from the dynamic field of health care. In the opening chapters, the editors present their framework for studying context in action and outline three main approaches, centered on the following questions: What constitutes context for a phenomenon or an event? How do actors understand, experience, and engage with context? How do contexts change and what is the role of actors in such processes? Context and action are then explored through a range of topics such as enactment and organizational change, policy implementation, executive work, strategic change, materiality, technology, patients and relatives' perspectives, integrated care, quality improvement, and health care support work. Relevant to both management researchers and practitioners, this volume provides a definition of context as theoretical construct based on interactionist and process based perspectives, and a practical framework for studying context in action which the reader can use in their own work.

Foundations of Health Care Management Leaders and managers throughout the health care system are facing ever more challenging changes in the way care is delivered, paid for, and evaluated. Foundations of Health Care Management: Principles and Methods offers an innovative, concise, reader-friendly introduction to health care management and administration. It addresses the need for new skills in managers of health care facilities and for those planning to enter health care management positions. The book covers such critical topics as leadership training, change management, conflict management techniques, culture building, quality improvement, and communications skills, as well as collaboration in the improvement of population health. Foundations of Health Care Management also concentrates on innovations and describes steps in the transition to more decentralized and creative approaches to the management of health care facilities. The book covers physician management from the physician's viewpoint, a valuable perspective for health care managers. The book serves important dual purposes for faculty and students by providing both insights into the health care field as well as foundational content on essential management and leadership competencies. A full set of support materials is available for instructors at the book's companion Web site.

This exciting, first-of-its-kind title describes the blossoming new science of medicine and management—the concepts, methodologies, techniques, and tools that create value for patients, populations, caregivers, staff, and healthcare organizations. Developed out of the innovative and powerful physician executive MBA program at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, The New Science of Medicine & Management describes what physician leaders need to know and do to fix problems that can erode value in complex healthcare environments in which they practice medicine. The book is motivated by a singular proposition—Every Physician a Leader; Every Leader a Collaborative Team Player and a new definition of high-value health care. Composed of the best 18 of approximately 200 outstanding physician-led business school projects, the book is based on the collective efforts and experiences of 33 authors and coauthors, 28 of whom are physicians and 19 of whom have an MD and an MBA degree. The work is grounded in three important assertions: First, the clinical side of complex professional medical organizations such as hospitals has traditionally been led by highly skilled, highly experienced medical practitioners trained in the underlying biomedical disciplines and applied medical sciences. Second, there is research evidence that managers with clinical backgrounds can run better healthcare organizations, and a growing number of physician-led multispecialty groups are outperforming organizations run by lay managers. Third, physicians and other caregivers should have some training in the new science of medicine and management; moreover, and very importantly, the transition from clinician to clinical manager and leader is challenging and requires training in the new science of medicine and management. State of the art, developed by expert physician leaders in the field, and replete with a wide range of management insights and lessons, this book asks important questions and offers an exciting and comprehensive resource for all physicians, health administrators, and clinicians interested in not only the science of medicine and management and in developing physician-led teams but, crucially, in ensuring value in healthcare by improving patient outcomes, safety, affordability, and employee well-being.