ABSTRACT
Clarian West Medical Center in Avon, Indiana opened in December 2004. From the very start, its owners and administrative leaders were intent on building not just a hospital but also a healing culture. Their vision of clinical excellence and their business plan were based on the idea of creating a "Healing Sanctuary" combining the practice of Relationship-centered Care with the best traditions of patient safety, knowledge-based care and continuous quality improvement to achieve outstanding organizational results. This chapter describes a relationship-centered approach to the hiring, orientation and ongoing management of a new hospital staff. Hospital performance measures over the first two years showed consistently high levels of quality, safety, satisfaction (both patient and staff) and financial performance, validating the effectiveness of Relationship-centered Administration and a hospital strategy based on Relationship-centered Care.
