Author: Dr. Kimberly Probus
Healthcare Consultants are established in the industry as the change leaders- experts in their fields, who by vast experience have acquired the knowledge and methods to make change. Consultants are retained to initiate total turnarounds, implement strategies, deploy resources, focus on quality and regulatory compliance, develop, or improve service lines, and generate interventions catered to a particular population or employee audience.
Consultants- and the reasons for hiring one- can be unlimited. They may be labor specialists, clinicians, executive leadership trainers, masters of evidence-based practice, interim leaders, financial operators, procurement professionals, or service line innovators. Often, they have been C-suite representatives for entire health systems and have long lists of successful engagements.
None of this is new information, but the difference is how consultants might be used.
When one pictures the work of a healthcare consultant, the initial thought is that they manage troubled hospitals. While that is true, there is a difference in how a company might use a consult with whom it has been matched for a specific purpose. Matchmaking for healthcare consults allows freedom in this landscape to pick and choose skills. It allows a firm to select a leader based on their specific history with the precise skills to meet the needs of the firm.
The benefits of matchmaking with a desirable consultant
The benefits of matchmaking with a desirable consultant are immediately recognizable by the firm, the consultant, and the project leaders. To the firm, real, proven strategies are furnished after a thorough but quick assessment. The consultant knows exactly what they are looking for and where to find it to determine the plan for a successful outcome. The firm also realizes an elimination of waste: the work plan will be precise and only include the items sought by the firm. There is no wasted funding, time, or other resources. The consultant is able to focus on their established work and methods, which generates satisfaction for them and a positive environment for the firm’s staff. The project leaders are happy to make fast progress with an expert who understands their needs and speaks the language of their specialty.
Using the diagram above, here are some examples from my career in each type of engagement, where my skills matched a project on each rung of the pyramid.
Having consulted in 56 hospitals across the United States, I have worked with the best of each of them and developed my methods and tools to solve problems such as these.
One intervention is a valid reason for a consultation if said intervention is to be sustainable and supported by the organizational culture.
The investor approach to marketing
An example of a single intervention would be implementation of safety huddles. This is an evidence-based practice utilized by Highly Reliable Organizations to focus on patient safety and provides a mechanism for swift response to quality issues and proactively reporting potential pitfalls. By background, this consultant is a Chief Nursing Officer, whose role is to translate evidence into practice. Therefore, an excellent choice for the sustainable implementation of a single intervention would be a former CNO, which you can select from a list of potential consultants who have done this work.
There are many strategies to the onset of a new service line, and I have been selected to partner with the leadership of a multi-hospital system to provide feasibility studies, market analysis, ROI, and implementation plans for geropsych, addiction recovery, orthopedics, progressive care unit, and freestanding emergency departments. I have started several hospitals, as well. You would seek a consultant who has experience with the service line or with new service line startup. They know who to invite to a planning meeting to complete successful implementation and keep everyone on track for the journey.
Several strategies may need to be implemented across separate functions, such as with establishing an organizational culture, writing mission statements, conducting market surveys, communicating bad news, or supporting employee engagement. There is a set of strategies that I use to shift thinking and germinate organizational commitment. It covers every department, but there is usually a focused few to which I apply a selected set of strategies.
Like a single intervention, the differences for implementation of one measure to multiple departments is time and outcomes measurements. This would be a more robust change management plan with frequent sustainability measures that continue long after the staff are trained. It is the second most frequent reason I’m consulted- to institute one important change that permeates the fabric of the organization. One good example of this experience would be bedside hand off. As a national patient safety goal and focus of several quality monitoring organizations, we know transitions of care from one provider or location to another is a moment fraught with opportunity for error. Careful implementation of a communication tool between professionals reduces failure. Using a method that can be done between shifts, between departments, or between locations of care is critically important to complete transfers.
“Of course, the turnaround of an organization destined for failure is my passion. I have had this opportunity six times and have enjoyed the chance to work with highly talented and engaged individuals like the other consultants at Peror Healthcare Services. This takes a dedicated team but has only one measure of success: The survival of an entity whose purpose is to care for the sick and injured. What a noble body of work! “
Help impact the next era of health care
Consultants help you do the work you already know you need to do. Finding the exact match to that work saves time, effort, and money and aligning an expert whose experience fits your hospital’s precise needs is imperative. Be sure to review profiles and ask for more information.
