ABSTRACT
Bringing everyone together, from the frontline caregivers to senior leaders enabled institutional leadership to challenge the entire line of management to identify opportunities for improvement and to present plans to pursue them. Participants learned techniques, read the literature, led their own improvement projects, and learned convincingly the institution’s commitment to improvement, transparency, and providing leadership in improving child health. Leadership’s embrace of family-centered care after a group of trustees, organizational leaders and frontline staff attended the national meeting of the Institute for Family-Centered Care in 1998. For the business units, the chance to present ideas to senior leaders held the promise of access to institutional resources to take advantage of the new opportunities. Being able to understand financial results in the least time possible in the business unit meetings was substantially enhanced by use of template reporting. Predictable, scheduled meetings with the business unit leaders and the medical center leaders are critical.
