Frontiers of Health Services Management - DRM Test - 6

more convenient options for accessing healthcare are offered to the public,
which has already come to expect them
as a result of the way it consumes other
goods and services. New technologies
have enabled care to shift into the hands
of less-trained practitioners and, in some
cases, the patients themselves. The fee-forservice reimbursement model, which rewards volume and causes a misalignment
of incentives between the biopsychosocial
health of the patient and
Potential innovation energy the financial health of the
resides in each employee. provider, is being replaced
with a combination of
reimbursement for value and the assumption of financial risk by the provider.
To succeed amid these changes, a
healthcare system must also change. However, two forces impede an organization's
ability to respond with nimbleness and
agility:
1. Organizational dynamics: The status
quo is stubborn. If one tries to move
an organization away from its usual
and customary way of operating,
strong forces pull the organization
back to status quo ante. Expressed in
the terminology of complex systems,
the status quo is a strong "attractor."
An organization requires less energy
to keep doing what it has been doing
than it does to break out and take
a different path. The familiarity of
the known supersedes the potential
benefit of the unknown nearly every
time.
2. Personal dynamics: The tyranny of
the daily trumps the pursuit of the
remarkable. For most of our workday,
we keep ourselves busy with urgent
but unimportant tasks that fill our
minds and consume our time,

leaving virtually no space for creative
thinking, problem solving, and
learning.
The most productive and competent
employees are usually the ones who are
asked to take on more. These are the very
same people most likely to have a bold
new idea or the critical reframing needed
for innovation, but they are stretched to
their absolute maximum each day. The
result is a huge opportunity cost-unseen
and unmeasured-of great creative work
lost forever because it was never started.

Chartering the Medstar
Institute for Innovation
Anticipating the unrelenting changes in
the healthcare industry, leaders at MedStar
Health acknowledged the need to evolve as
a system to prepare for the future. MedStar
Health is a $5 billion, not-for-profit, integrated healthcare delivery system with ten
hospitals and a comprehensive network
of almost 300 health-related care sites
serving the Maryland and Washington,
DC, region. With approximately 31,000
employees and 6,000 affiliated physicians,
MedStar Health is the largest healthcare
provider and one of the largest employers
in the mid-Atlantic region. MedStar Health
combines the best aspects of academic
medicine, research, and innovation, including a medical education and clinical
partnership with Georgetown University,
with a complete spectrum of clinical services to advance patient care. Its areas of
clinical excellence include cardiology and
cardiac surgery, orthopedics, neuroscience,
cancer, transplantation, rehabilitation, and
emergency and trauma services.
In 2009, MedStar Health's president
and CEO chartered the MedStar Institute
for Innovation (MI2) on the premise that

6 * f ro ntier s o f h ea lth s e rvic e s m a na g e me nt 33:2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Frontiers of Health Services Management - DRM Test