Today we are talking about the role of empathy and leadership in patient satisfaction and clinician satisfaction. As clinicians we are empathetic with the patients and the families we serve. Who empathizes with clinicians? There isn’t much known about how clinicians receive or perceive empathy from others. We are excited to have our guests Dr. Wilma Powell Stuart and Dr. Bridget Moore share their passion for empathy in the workplace as well as how they have combined empathy and Polarity Thinking...
Jan 08, 2020•45 min•Ep. 26
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! We are so excited to kick off the New Year with Dr. Miguel Paniagua sharing his personal and professional story about Burnout and Clinician Well-Being & Resilience Clinician burnout is a unique and personal journey for anyone who experiences it. Lives are at stake! Not just clinician’s lives but patient's lives. We now know that poor provider wellness leads to medical errors. We are fortunate to have Dr. Paniagua to share his personal experience, hitting rock bottom and how...
Jan 01, 2020•41 min•Ep. 25
How involved are you in the decisions that impact your work environment? If you are a leader, are you engaging the clinicians in decision-making? Decisions are made every day in healthcare by clinicians and by leaders. Some of those decisions can have a major impact on the culture and clinical outcomes. Today we are discussing the Directive and Participative Decision-Making polarity in the context of healthcare leadership. All decisions should be made to serve the mission with an intention to ha...
Dec 25, 2019•32 min•Ep. 24
When it comes to patient and clinician safety, what’s keeping you up at night? Are the clinician’s in your organization at risk? Is their safety being threatened? Patient safety has been on the minds of healthcare leaders across the United States ever since the Institute of Medicine published the landmark report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. More recently there is increasing concern about clinician safety. Clinician harm is escalating. Are we doing enough to keep clinician sa...
Dec 18, 2019•46 min•Ep. 23
No one health professional can be responsible for the delivery of quality safe care, but many have not been prepared to work in teams. This is one of the greatest challenges faced in healthcare today. There is a lot to learn about leveraging this tension between individual and team in today’s healthcare environments. Experiences vary greatly across the country from one healthcare organization or practice to another. What are you experiencing? In this episode, we interview Dr. Tony Suchman, an or...
Dec 11, 2019•56 min•Ep. 22
There is no turning back now! We are in the digital age and electronic health records (EHRs) are here to stay! What is important now is looking at the results or outcomes of the rapid implementation of the EHRs. The lens we use to examine the outcomes can have serious implications for future strategies. In this episode we talk with Dr. Susan McBride and Dr. Mary Tietze, two nurse informatics scholars from Texas who share our passion for health information technology and interprofessional practic...
Dec 04, 2019•56 min•Ep. 21
Are you feeling the tension between serving the mission while maintaining the margin? It is a stressful time for leaders as they worry about delivering quality, safe care, reducing clinician burden, improving patient and family experiences and at the same time dealing with changing reimbursement models and financial constraints. As a leader, do you feel like you don’t have enough fingers to plug the numerous holes in the dike? The truth is, these challenges are not isolated problems. They repres...
Nov 27, 2019•34 min•Ep. 20
Have you ever wondered how healthcare organizations became so hierarchical or why we struggle with hierarchical relationships in our healthcare environments? In today’s episode, we discuss the vertical (hierarchy) and horizontal (partnership) relationship polarity in healthcare settings with Bonnie Wesorick. Bonnie has over 40 years of experience in helping organizations establish partnership infrastructures that lead to the creation of healthy cultures. There is a long history in the evolution ...
Nov 20, 2019•51 min•Ep. 19
Ever had the feeling that everything and nothing has changed at the same time? That’s how we felt during this episode as we talked with Laurie Shiparski about staffing challenges and the recruitment and retention polarity. While challenges with staffing in healthcare haven’t changed much over the past 20 years there are unique and innovative strategies that can be used to leverage the recruitment and retention polarity that lies beneath the staffing problem. Laurie is a Principle at Edgework Ins...
Nov 13, 2019•52 min•Ep. 18
In one of our previous episodes our guest, Ben Moulton said “Patients are the co-pilot in the airplane called better healthcare” In a person-centered approach to care hearing the person’s voice and engaging them in decision-making is critical. How often do we hear the patient’s story? We gather patient data but are we asking patients to tell their story, to convey their experiences, and are we listening and learning from those experiences when they are told? What is it costing, if we aren’t trul...
Nov 06, 2019•38 min•Ep. 17
In today’s episode our conversation focuses on strategies related to well-being and resilience. Clinician burnout is a significant issue and it is getting a lot of attention right now. Unfortunately, 50% of the clinicians including nursing and physicians are experiencing burnout. We are very fortunate to have Dr. Bernadette Melnyk from The Ohio State University on the show today. Dr. Melnyk is an inspiring leader who is blazing a significant well-being and resilience trail at OSU as the very fir...
Oct 30, 2019•41 min•Ep. 16
There is a call for alignment between education and the healthcare delivery system This alignment has been recognized as a critical component in efforts to improve health and the healthcare system. To this point most of the interprofessional work has occurred in education with the intention to drive changes in healthcare. If positive changes in healthcare are to occur, it must come from an alignment between practice and education. 90-95 % of the current workforce has potentially not participated...
Oct 23, 2019•43 min•Ep. 15
Is there anyone who is not trying to manage the relationship between SELF and OTHERS? In today’s podcast we discuss the SELF and OTHER Polarity. This one show’s up in all aspects of life. We can feel the tension between SELF and OTHER at work as clinicians and leaders. The SELF and OTHER tension can also be felt at home as parents or in our marriages or relationships. This is NOT going away! Do you often feel like you are being forced to make a choice? To choose between yourself and caring or fo...
Oct 16, 2019•27 min•Ep. 14
“Patients are the co-pilot in the airplane called better healthcare” Ben Moulton This is a very interesting episode because today we’re talking with Dr. Glyn Elwyn a physician/researcher and Ben Moulton a lawyer/patient advocate about the Directive and Shared Decision-Making Polarity. This polarity can show up in different contexts, leaders and employees, parents and children, but today we are discussing this polarity within the context of decision-making between the provider and patient/family....
Oct 09, 2019•58 min•Ep. 13
This polarity is a “BIGGY” listeners! Today we are talking about the technology platform and practice platform polarity. We have 20 years of experience with this polarity. We’ve used health information technology at the point of care as clinicians, lead implementations of technology and practice frameworks in hospitals, developed evidence-based content to integrate into the electronic health record and participated on one of the first design teams for the electronic health record. We recognized ...
Oct 02, 2019•40 min•Ep. 12
Have you ever heard of the phrase, “There is no I in team”? Well, there is an “I in Individual”, and teams are made up of individuals. So, in reality, there is an I in Team! Nationally leaders are looking to team-based care as one of the solutions to poor quality care. There is an emphasis on moving away from individual autonomous care to team-based care. What leaders don’t realize is individual and team is a polarity that needs to be leveraged. “Individual and Team” represent an interdependent ...
Sep 25, 2019•31 min•Ep. 11
In this episode we focus on an over-arching healthcare polarity. The Margin and Mission Polarity. Everyone in healthcare is impacted by this polarity. Both Margin and Mission must to be present for the system to be sustainable and provide the healthcare we need. Today we're looking at this polarity within the context of complex care and social needs. During this episode we talk with Lauran Hardin. Lauran is a leader at the National Center for Complex Care and Social Needs. The center is the home...
Sep 18, 2019•46 min•Ep. 10
Relationships are a critical element of interprofessional collaboration. In today’s episode, we discuss hierarchy and partnership within the context of interprofessional collaboration in the healthcare setting. There is a long history in the evolution of the health professions and how they work together that is rooted in social class and gender differences. There is extensive literature describing the status inequities and power imbalances between physicians, nurses and other health professional...
Sep 11, 2019•41 min•Ep. 9
We were so excited to have Vicky Schmidt join us for this episode. Vicky has experienced some of the very best of care and some of the worst care over the past 18 years. She is a patient advocate for person-centered care and has shared her story with thousands. During this episode Vicky helps us shine a light on the patient and clinician safety polarity from a patient perspective. This is a significant polarity in healthcare and on the minds of clinicians and healthcare leaders everywhere. The g...
Sep 04, 2019•52 min•Ep. 8
Is there ever a time when staffing is not being addressed? Having adequate staff is a critical component of healthcare. It is more significant than in any other industry probably. In other industries when someone doesn’t show up for work or you have a few vacancies you may be able to shift things and it’s not that big of a deal (at least it's not life threatening) or you are able to make things work. In healthcare, when there are staffing issues, the potential for harm to others increases and sa...
Aug 28, 2019•30 min•Ep. 7
In this episode we focus on a personal level polarity that we believe is universal. We venture to say that there isn’t anyone who isn’t or hasn’t been impacted by this polarity. Clinicians especially, because caring for others is at the core of our roles and responsibilities. Some individuals become clinicians because of their desire to care for others or to serve others or because they feel called to do so. In healthcare today leaders and clinicians are facing significant challenges such as inc...
Aug 21, 2019•35 min•Ep. 6
Both of us have spent a good portion of our careers developing and helping organizations implement tools, processes and infrastructures that support interprofessional education and collaborative practice. As you might guess this is a topic that is near and dear to our hearts. During the episode we talk about how the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System (1999); Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century (2001) and Health Pr...
Aug 14, 2019•32 min•Ep. 5
We were so excited to have Dr. Erin Craft-Otterbacher join us for this episode. Erin is a new Family Practice DNP graduate. She is a very bright, knowledgeable young lady who we know you will enjoy learning from and listening to. During this episode Erin helps us shine a light on caregiver burden and the need to manage the tension between the needs of the caregiver and the needs of the care recipient. Managing the tension between this pair of needs is an emerging and significant polarity in heal...
Aug 07, 2019•56 min•Ep. 4
In this introductory episode, Tracy and Michelle share their 30+ years experience with healthcare transformation and how they are “mad as hell” about the wasted time, money and resources spent on addressing the same challenges over and over. It is hard to take when you know it doesn’t have to be that way. As healthcare clinicians, leaders and educators we are excellent problems solvers, so why do we face the same challenges over and over? It’s because not every challenge is a problem that can be...
Jul 25, 2019•25 min•Ep. 1
Today we are exploring a major crux polarity in the healthcare system that is often looked at as two separate or independent issues. The topic today is the patient satisfaction and clinician satisfaction polarity. While this pair appears to be opposites, they have an interdependent relationship. Achieving positive sustainable outcomes cannot be accomplished by focusing on one or the other – heck no! It’s a both/and opportunity. In this episode we will discuss the current realities surrounding th...
Jul 25, 2019•37 min•Ep. 3
We are so grateful to have two “living legends” as our first guests on the podcast, Dr. Barry Johnson and Bonnie Wesorick. They are both phenomenal leaders whose life’s work has been to bring Polarity Thinking™ to the world. We are blessed to have them as our mentors, colleagues and friends! During the interview Barry shares how the original Polarity Map® emerged in 1975 and how the work has expanded globally. Barry partnered with Bonnie Wesorick in the 1990’s as she recognized the significance ...
Jul 25, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 2
