“I want the best to thrive”: latest keynote video

A quick note between trips – here’s my latest video of a keynote speech, this one delivered last Friday in Boise, Idaho. See discussion below.

This talk, at St. Luke’s Health System in Boise, capped my most intensive engagement yet with hospital management:

• It was my first-ever invitation directly from the CEO of a health system, David Pate, MD, JD.
• It was my biggest engagement yet, in amount of work and complexity (and dollar value).
• It was my highest-level engagement, going beyond a keynote and delving into consultative / cultural problem solving.

We had several phone discussions and a preparatory visit in January, with some physician meetings. We talked deeply, not just about patient engagement but about culture change, this particular group’s cultural challenges in this era of change, what disruptive innovation really is (the term is often misused), and more.  I suspect I passed a couple of “B.S. sniffer” tests.:-) (They didn’t axe me…)

Then last week at the event itself I participated in some smaller meetings, then a half day workshop with their Revenue Cycle team, which is going through the all-too-predictable difficulties of trying to merge multiple billing systems and organizations, as many health systems are today. And finally, the capstone – the opening keynote at their annual Health System Summit, to an audience of hundreds, including numerous board members as well as clinical leaders.

It’s hard to express my happiness at being invited to speak at the same event where the revered Dr. Don Berwick spoke a year ago. Plus, the other keynote speaker was Dr. Gary Kaplan, Chairman and CEO of Virginia Mason, the legendary Seattle hospital system that leads other hospitals in long-term Lean transformations. To speak in such circles … well, wow.

There’s a palpable air of commitment and challenge in the air at St. Luke’s, with a drive to accomplish. The consultative phone sessions and January on-site were organized and managed by Courtney Kirchner, who was Dr. Pate’s Fellow last year. The quality of that interchange is what led to my guest post on Dr. Pate’s blog, e-Patient Dave and the New Excellence: Consumerism Comes to the Medical Market, which got such response that Forbes picked it up for their site.

And one sign of St. Luke’s focus on execution is that this is the first speech video anyone’s sent me (edited from multiple cameras!) within a few days of the event. Their blogger and media production whiz Roya Park gets things done.

To be sure, this is a time of great change for all of medicine, and since not all organizations are the same, it’s a time of great change for many different organizations. I’m deeply grateful for the challenge and the opportunity presented by Dr. Pate and the highly competent partnership Courtney Kirchner managed.

(This video originally appeared on Dr. Pate’s blog this week.)