Breakthrough Performance: Accelerating the Transformation of Health Care Organizations / Edition 1

by Ellen J. Gaucher, Richard J. Coffey

Overview

Transform your organization. Learn to inspire the critical shared sense of urgency that is key to effective and successful innovation with acclaimed quality management gurus Ellen Gaucher and Richard Coffey as your guides. Drawing on analysis of the most current research and highlighting instructive case examples, Gaucher and Coffey will show you how to enhance organizational readiness and stimulate innovation beyond evolutionary incremental upgrades to achieve revolutionary breakthrough-level improvement in organizational performance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780787952310
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	05/22/2000
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	7.19(w) x 9.57(h) x 1.04(d)

About the Author

ELLEN J. GAUCHER is group vice president for operations/quality and customer satisfaction at Wellmark, Inc., Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa and South Dakota. She is associate editor for Aspen's Quality Management in Health Care and serves as a board member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. RICHARD J. COFFEY, Ph.D., is director of program and operations analysis, and director of research and planning, at the University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has served in staff, consulting, and leadership roles in many university and community health care, consulting, government, insurance, and private organizations for nearly thirty years.Gaucher and Coffey have co-authored two award-winning books. The first, Transforming Healthcare Organizations, won the 1992 James A. Hamilton book-of-the-year award from the American College of Healthcare Executives. The second, Total Quality in Healthcare, won the American Nurses Association book-of-the-year award in 1993.

Table of Contents

Tables, Figures, and Exhibits.

Preface.

The Authors.

Health Care's New Sense of Urgency.

The Relationship Between Business Excellence and Breakthrough Performance.

Creating a Climate for Breakthrough Performance.

The Characteristics of Breakthrough Performance.

How Health Care Leaders Create Breakthrough Performance.

Sharpening Your Customer Focus.

Aligning the Organization for Action.

Team Culture for Breakthrough Performance.

Involving the Individual.

Seven Indispensable Tools for Breakthrough.

The Baldrige Criteria: Your Secret Weapon.

Conclusion.

Appendix A. A Compendium of Questions for Breakthrough.

Appendix B. Actions to Achieve Breakthrough.

References.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Peter S. Pruessing(Medical College of Wisconsin)
Description: This is a comprehensive overview of the concepts, applications, and literature of innovation with a wide variety of examples from enlightened contemporary industry.
Purpose: The authors state that they not only want to provide "insights, approaches, and tools" for leaders but actually want to stimulate "big changes" in personal and organizational performance for everyone who reads the book.
Audience: This book suffers from an identity crisis — or, perhaps more accurately, a crisis of "voice," resulting from an attempt to speak to every audience. This undermines the utility the book would otherwise have for specific audiences. It claims to be written for organizational leaders and managers within healthcare (the primary audience); leaders and managers in other industries looking for "practical knowledge" to guide breakthroughs; and general readers who just want to know more about breakthrough change, including university students and employees interested in understanding and contributing to their organizations' successes. Unfortunately, it reads like a compendium for college students in a survey course, and as a result, the voice is actually rather pedestrian (which does the subject injustice) and fails to capture the excitement of breakthrough experience. This is all the more puzzling because the authors are successful and respected practitioners who are excited about their subject.
Features: This is a wide-ranging and useful discussion of breakthrough performance for those who want an overview with a lot of references, illustrations, and working examples. The references are current and demonstrate that the authors are sophisticated advocates who are in touch with their field. Ironically, the primary audience will find precious little here that is actually about healthcare — even the one chapter with healthcare in the title is about general management principles not specific to healthcare or even illustrated with concrete healthcare examples. In short, this book summarizes contemporary thinking about organizational management, customer service, quality improvement, empowerment of employees, leadership, change management, "value," etc.
Assessment: This is one of those books that makes a reviewer feel guilty. The authors are recognized experts who have assembled a substantial amount of information about an important topic, but it felt like every cliché in the book was being thrown at the reader, as were references and quotations seemingly intended to impress more than enlighten. I can imagine a serious student finding this helpful in getting grounded in these principles and their real life applications, but I can't imagine experienced leaders and managers in healthcare organizations finding much of this new or energizing or responsible for a personal epiphany. I wanted to like it more and to appreciate the service the authors were providing, but instead I found myself impatient and wishing for a breakthrough that didn't happen.

Doody's Review Service

"Contained in this book is the management framework for driving creativity, continuous improvement, and customer value. A must-read for health care executives and professionals looking to improve operational performance to meet dynamic customer expectations." —Dick Smith, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

"This book is full of strategies for health care leaders to use to accelerate their improvement process." —Bob Parent, Conference Program Director, The Conference Board

"This book, based on the real world experiences of the authors, is a must-read for health care executives; it provides unique insights and practical advice about how to overcome the daunting challenges of today's health care marketplace." —Robert P. Kelch, dean, The University of Iowa College of Medicine

From the Publisher

2 Stars from Doody

This is a comprehensive overview of the concepts, applications, and literature of innovation with a wide variety of examples from enlightened contemporary industry. The authors state that they not only want to provide ""insights, approaches, and tools"" for leaders but actually want to stimulate ""big changes"" in personal and organizational performance for everyone who reads the book. This book suffers from an identity crisis -- or, perhaps more accurately, a crisis of ""voice,"" resulting from an attempt to speak to every audience. This undermines the utility the book would otherwise have for specific audiences. It claims to be written for organizational leaders and managers within healthcare (the primary audience); leaders and managers in other industries looking for ""practical knowledge"" to guide breakthroughs; and general readers who just want to know more about breakthrough change, including university students and employees interested in understanding and contributing to their organizations' successes. Unfortunately, it reads like a compendium for college students in a survey course, and as a result, the voice is actually rather pedestrian (which does the subject injustice) and fails to capture the excitement of breakthrough experience. This is all the more puzzling because the authors are successful and respected practitioners who are excited about their subject. This is a wide-ranging and useful discussion of breakthrough performance for those who want an overview with a lot of references, illustrations, and working examples. The references are current and demonstrate that the authors are sophisticated advocates who are in touch with their field. Ironically, the primaryaudience will find precious little here that is actually about healthcare -- even the one chapter with healthcare in the title is about general management principles not specific to healthcare or even illustrated with concrete healthcare examples. In short, this book summarizes contemporary thinking about organizational management, customer service, quality improvement, empowerment of employees, leadership, change management, ""value,"" etc. This is one of those books that makes a reviewer feel guilty. The authors are recognized experts who have assembled a substantial amount of information about an important topic, but it felt like every cliché in the book was being thrown at the reader, as were references and quotations seemingly intended to impress more than enlighten. I can imagine a serious student finding this helpful in getting grounded in these principles and their real life applications, but I can't imagine experienced leaders and managers in healthcare organizations finding much of this new or energizing or responsible for a personal epiphany. I wanted to like it more and to appreciate the service the authors were providing, but instead I found myself impatient and wishing for a breakthrough that didn't happen.

Peter S. Pruessing

Shows organizational leaders and managers in health care how to enhance organizational readiness and stimulate innovation to achieve breakthrough-level improvement in organizational performance. Provides tools to help organizations develop new products or services that have breakthroughs in performance, or provide products or services at substantially lower costs to customers. Gaucher is affiliated with Wellmark, Inc., Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa and South Dakota. Coffey is affiliated with the University of Michigan Health System. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews