America's Essential Hospitals - Investing in Our Future

Last month, I attended America’s Essential Hospitals annual conference in Boston. It’s one of the nation’s largest gathering of leaders from Safety Net hospitals. As access to health continues to grow, challenges facing Safety Nets are on the rise. At the same time, leaders in the field are finding ways to drive growth while keeping safety and satisfaction levels high.

Here are six key takeaways from the conference:

• Performance improvement initiatives needs to strike the right balance between standardization of tasks and the independence staff need to perform compassionate care
• Communications is a difference maker in increasingly cross-functional care delivery
• Political trends continue to point to tying reimbursement funds to quality and efficiency standards 
• Successful cultural transformations earn buy-in from service line leaders
• Community reputation is becoming a key deciding factor for retention and hiring
• Safety, safety, safety. Everything starts and ends with it.