"There is a problem with leadership in healthcare!”

With those words Simon Sinek (from i.e. Let's start with WHY) replied to me in our interview with him for the coverstory for the first edition of the international edition of ICT & Health : “There isn’t a problem with medicine. There is a problem with leadership!” 

Boom! Here we are, skyping with my openingspeaker of my very first TEDx I've set stage for, in 2011 TEDxMaastricht we as Radboudumc REshape Center had put together. Debunking the myth leadership should aim and focus on the patient:

“I fear hospitals are some of the worst examples of leadership. It may sound strange, but too many leaders think only of their patients. That’s wrong. They have to think of their employees, the doctors and nurses. They have to think of it as a job. They have to manage. And then in turn, the doctors and nurses have to think of their patients.” 

Well thát's an interesting perspective Simon launched. I continued the discussion : "The interesting thing is that in hospitals in the Netherlands, patients are increasingly treated like partners. We provide patients choices and significance. How do you feel about that?"

Simon : “You have to take the patients out of the equation. That is not the issue. The point is: do the staff members feel like their leaders care about them? It seems scary, but that is the right question to ask. This discussion is missing. This topic is never discussed in hospitals. I don’t care about the quality of this industry. It is standard in this industry. We have to take care of the people that work in this field first, and then they can take care of the patients.” 

We covered several topics touching health(care) in this interview, I wanted to know how he thinks about millenials coming onboard as workers in healthcare. : "People in healthcare are also aging, and now a younger generation is coming on board. What about millennials? "

“A few things are happening to this generation that we tend to neglect. First, they are subject to a different type of parenting than we experienced. They were all little princes and princesses. When they failed at school, their parents merely complained. But as soon as they found a job, this changed. All of a sudden, they have to take care of themselves. And they are not used to that, so they get stressed out. Second of all, there is a huge amount of technology in their lives, like cell phones and social media. Every time they receive a notification or a ‘like’, a little hit of dopamine gets released in their brain. And as you know, dopamine is addictive. Remember, we are talking about kids here. There is no age restriction on using a phone.” 

To recap the interview as Chairman of the Editorial board of ICT & Health I wanted to pick his mind on his vision on technology and health(care) of course :

“Technology is making us better. That is really remarkable. But we need to remember that we are in interpersonal relationships. 

Above are just some pearls from this coverstory interview I had with Simon. Head over to the first edition that has been put online for free, just like the Dutch version the International version is aimed at the intersection of technology and patient empowerment. There is tons of great content in it. If you like it, you can subscribe to it of course.

I would love to hear your opinion on these topics, should the leadership indeed focus more on the staff than the patients ?

You might like some of the other 'glass half full or empty' blogs i wrote :

1. The power of the Human Touch. About the balance between technology and 'being there'
2. Is she real ? On how the quality of virtual assistants is increasingly getting realistic.
3. I was invited by Angela Merkel to hear forum on healthcare. a recap of that meeting