Leadership and crisis
Healthcare workers wearing protective gear were a daily part of this week’s morning coffee-and-newspaper ritual. This week, disturbing news about the lack of protocols emerged from anonymous nurses at Texas Presbyterian Hospital. Wall Street investors have switched their bets from companies that make investigational drugs to those that manufacture protective gear. Although four confirmed cases of Ebola here do not add up to a crisis, Liberia’s crisis is now visiting our shores. Without strong leadership, we could have one here too.
Crisis separates the wheat from the chaff among leaders, and we get a very clear account of that from Ron Boucher, MD, in a two-part interview that appeared on RadiologyBusiness.com this week. Boucher was part of a team that brought radiology onto the battlefield in Kandahar—perhaps for the first time in military history—and there are lessons to be learned while repairing torn young bodies with rockets screaming overhead. In advance of his keynote address at the RBMA Fall Meeting (which will live-stream from Seattle this Sunday), Boucher shares some of those experiences with readers, drawing direct parallels to the quest to add—and articulate—value in civilian radiology.
The situation in Texas is emerging as one in which the hospital was apparently unprepared to care for a patient with the deadly virus. Hospitals and providers can’t prepare for every emergency, but they can put systems in place that ensure an appropriate response.
Our recent issue of Radiology Business Journal, posted online this week, features an article from Lisa Laurent, MD, MBA, on what it takes to build a high-reliability organization (HRO). At the outset, she share’s Quint Studer’s definition of an HRO as “organizations with systems in place that make them exceptionally consistent in accomplishing their goals and avoiding potentially catastrophic error.” Leadership plays a vital role in building an HRO; her article warrants a close read.
Leaders step up, they don’t hide in corner offices. Leaders fight alongside and communicate with their troops. Leaders get out in front of the crisis by whatever means necessary. Leadership is important at all times, not just in times of crisis, but a good leader can avert a crisis.
Stay strong, stay safe!
Vice President, Executive Editor, Radiology Business
Cheryl began her career in journalism when Wite-Out was a relatively new technology. During the past 16 years, she has covered radiology and followed developments in healthcare policy. She holds a BA in History from the University of Delaware and likes nothing better than a good story, well told.