Change: Courage, Resilience and Hope

In full transparency, I didn’t really start a new job, I just updated my profile.?I made the decision to move back to the US in the fall of 2020.?The pandemic was raging and I wanted to be at least on the same continent as my mom and dad in case they got sick.?I started looking for jobs a couple of months before I was due to leave the UAE.?After just over 5 years of executive leadership in very busy and complex settings I thought it would be easy to move and settle comfortably back into to my old routines.?

I was told by recruiters that there was no way I would ever be hired by a healthcare system or hospital in the US.?I had simply been out of the game here too long and too many things had changed over those five plus years that would render me incapable of performing at the level I previously had.?I was surprised and doubtful, however, it was the same story over and over from recruiters, and others I respected in the industry.?I finally landed a position in a small rural hospital and moved to a very small rural town and thought to myself “You got this.?You moved to a foreign country you knew nothing about and took on a very high-level role you really had no experience doing and you flourished.?How hard can this be??You are going home!”?It wasn’t long after I came to realize yes, things have drastically changed in the US, but actually not much has changed in healthcare.?

My great-grandmother ran a skilled nursing facility for 4 generations.?I literally grew up in healthcare.?I have spent almost a 40-year career dedicating my life to improving healthcare in communities I served.?I was on the front line when the AIDS epidemic broke out and I spent many years working to improve the care patients in my community received.?I stood shoulder to shoulder with the pioneers of patient safety in the late 90’s when the IOM published “To Err is Human”.?I sacrificed time with my family and years of my life working to improve outcomes and safety in hospitals across the US.?Some five years later, I found healthcare in exactly the same state my great-grandmother found it in almost a century ago.?

My job still centers around the primary themes of how to make patient care safer and how to achieve better outcomes.?I found working in rural America to be a much greater challenge, both personally and professionally, than I ever could have imagined.?Fortunately, I was provided an opportunity to move into a bigger role about a year ago in a metropolitan area working with multiple sites.?However, in all cases, the topics of conversation remain the same:?labor shortages, high census, issues with payors, quality of care concerns, patient safety challenges and just this month, a nurse was criminally charged for making a medication error.?All in all, yes, things have changed in the last five years, but they haven’t really changed much at all.

This isn’t a tale of woe.?This is a tale of courage, resilience, and hope.?My experience in the UAE was worth more than the price I paid!?I learned about cultures and beliefs and attitudes from around the world.?I saw medicine practiced in unique ways and met thought leaders that had very different perspectives.?I met patient safety leaders who are doing great work in places like Africa.?I met safety leaders from other industries such as civil and military aviation, construction, and nuclear power that had thoughts I could definitely apply to my own industry.?US Healthcare is most definitely changed as a direct result of this pandemic, but also as a result of their failure to learn.

Last week, the health system I work for joined forces with Intermountain Health in what promises to be a merger of great opportunity.?With a vision to change the way healthcare is delivered in the US and a mission to serve the people of the communities we are in; I am excited and hopeful that I will finally see that great change.?I heard Don Berwick speak at a patient safety conference once and, in his presentation, he said “Some is not a number, soon is not a time”.?I never forgot that.?For me the number is ONE – every single patient I have the opportunity to serve and the time is NOW.?With our visionary leaders and our dedicated team of caregivers, this is stacking up to be a year of great anticipation.?I am proud of the work I have done so far and excited to see what the future holds.?Thank you all for your well wishes!!