**This post originally appeared on the BMJ Quality Blog.
Change is always hard and most of the times we hate to change. Often, attempts to change or improve in an organization are met with resistance, making failure and frustration the common outcomes of change initiatives.
In the summer of 2012,
Sixty-four different sites – many with high rates of child poverty and complex long-term conditions; high proportion of ethnic minorities; 14 care-commissioning groups who demand different quality metrics; and a focus on mental health and community care – not the most remunerative areas in healthcare.
All this complexity hasn’t prevented East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) to set itself the audacious goal of becoming the highest quality provider by 2020!
Yes, according to Dr. Farris Timimi , a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic who is medical director of Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media . In fact he goes as far as to say that physicians’ participation in social media is a moral imperative and part of being professional. He says that patients are spending time online seeking health information and support and that represents both an opportunity and a moral obligation for providers.
I skipped breakfast and arrived a good half-hour earlier than the scheduled start time, not wanting to risk being late for my first WHO Expert Consultation. When I had received the invitation to participate in developing a framework for Patient and Family engagement several weeks ago, I remember feeling honored. I was excited by the prospect of making a contribution at a global level and developing new relationships that could help our hospital continue along our journey of improving safety and transparency (see my earlier blog posts on the start of our safety journey and on disclosing our cesarean section rate).
“I have greater assurance about product quality and service quality when I walk into a Sagar for a snack than when I go into a hospital!” (Sagar is a chain of restaurants in Delhi best known for serving South Indian food.) I have often said this to our consultants and managers to illustrate the unacceptably low levels of reliability in most healthcare delivery encounters – including at our hospital.
