“When we were looking at our health system, we were looking at employee engagement, we were looking at patient satisfaction, and neither one of those things really were something to be oppressed by or something to really promote in the community . . . And so, we wanted to really change the way people saw us first, and how people come to work and wanted to have a passion about working with each other and serving patients; and then, second, to the community, and how people see us to come to make us really a provider of choice. Passion really became one of those words that we rallied behind. And how that began was our CEO engaged our employees first and said, ‘Okay, let’s define this. What type of place do you want to work in? What are some words, what are some phrases that would define a strong, healthy culture?’ And really, we came up with our Standards of Excellence, very similar to what other hospitals have. That was where that really started. But then for us, we wanted to name our culture, so let’s put a name to it. Let’s define it. Let’s put some bricks and mortar around it. And so we named it Service Is Our Passion. And that really began a rally cry around how we treat one another and how we treat our patients.”

“Some practical things we do: 

• Every leader is expected to write thank-you cards every single week to employees on the front lines or to coworkers or peers.  
• We greet at the front of the hospital. Every executive, every director, we’re in the main hospital, escorting, greeting, welcoming people throughout our campus, because it can be daunting, it can be overwhelming.  
• How we treat one another. We instituted an internal manage-up system to where if things go well and people do exceptionally well, then we’re recognizing each other.”  

“We wanted to use that word ‘passion’ and make it synonymous between internal and external customers. And so about two years ago, we partnered with a consulting firm, and we asked the community what their perceptions of us were—beyond the patient experience surveys, beyond the Google reviews. We really wanted to hear how we were perceived. We came up with an external campaign called Our Passion Is You. And so it really plays off the word ‘passion,’ which we come to really hold true, but then it does play that out. I want to get people back to the things they love and doing the things that really fill their cup. From a consumer or a patient side of things, we started telling stories, and we would tell their story. We’d ask them, ‘What were you doing before your healthcare instance, situation? And how can we get you back to that passion, whether it’s riding a bicycle or playing the piano or being involved with sports.’ And so, I think to the community, they saw their own community members living back that passion after a healthcare moment. 

For employees, we doubled down in a lot of different ways to make employees feel heard and cared for and invested in. A few examples: 

• We expanded some of our EAP resources for employees; so prior to the pandemic, they could go to get eight sessions per year for them and their significant other or their family members. Through the pandemic, we increased that to twelve. We actually hired three on-site counselors to be here in the hospital, rounding throughout the campus, rounding throughout the clinics, just to provide accessibility and to really try to combat the stigma about getting help. But it’s confidential, but they’re available and accessible.  
• We built a tranquility room where people, during the midst of the shift, can go and just unwind. And it has massage chairs and coffee and Cokes and easy music, and it’s just out of the unit to give them that peace of mind.  
• We invested in our wellness program. We really retooled it. We thought of every aspect of wellness. And so whether it was physical, emotional, spiritual, maybe community, and then also financial. So we really wanted to try to provide services to our 5,000 employees that really would maybe speak to them, to try to help them refill their cups.  
• In addition to the pizza that everybody kind of talks about, that we gave out in droves, or the gift cards, or the thank-you notes, just all those different things to really fill people back up. We really tried to be sensitive to that.” 

 “We just broke down the barrier in terms of ‘you’ve got to go somewhere off-site to be seen by someone.’ We brought it to them. Our counselors would go out to the units, and they would have snacks, and they would meet people and just get to know them on a personal level. Not in the counseling session, not a therapy session, but just, ‘How are you doing today?’ And our chaplains would go right along with them. And so there was a spiritual aspect of it. There’s this scientific aspect of it where they just work in conjunction. They would go everywhere and just build those relationships first. Then we would have offerings that would be in mutual environments or safe environments. Whether we’re doing a book study—24/7 was the book we read, or Work-Life Balance. We would have lunches and we’d bring them in. They could just sit there, listen, take what they wanted, and leave without any commitment. We just really tried to do it in a way that they felt safe and they felt that we were really trying to engage them.”  

“The first thing, and it is getting a little bit tougher these days, but hiring the right people. We really do our very best to find the best talent, and then we put them through a series of interviews. We have peer interviews for all entry positions to where it’s not only just a proficiency or competency interview, but it is a cultural fit interview. And we make sure that we hire the right people on first. So that’s a good way to start. And upon hiring, they agree to live out our standards and to adopt those and to embrace those as much as we can.

Once they get here, we have a variety of ways to get them onboarded, but we really try to emphasize that compassion and that service really does work. There’s a book that just came out called Compassionomics, and it’s a phenomenal book. They’ve really taken a scientifically evidenced approach to proving that compassion both reduces individual burnout, it leads to good health outcomes, and it does so much for the ultimate long-term care of the patient because they establish an environment of trust, and they’re much more likely to be trusting toward their healthcare providers and much more compliant post-discharge. And so, we use science to really prove that it works.” 

“My wife and I were expecting our first daughter, and it’s just all the joy and the excitement that comes along with that. And we came into the hospital that I worked for, and at the time I was the Director of Patient Experience, and so people knew me a little bit in terms of what I do and what I focused on. But for me, for the time I was there, it was all about her and all about our daughter. And my wife, unfortunately, really encountered some delays and some complications as we got closer to the due date, as we got closer to the delivery time, and ended up staying on Pitocin for about thirty-plus hours. It was a pretty long stent treatment there. And then after we had our daughter, just some additional complications. And there was a specific moment where my wife was not doing very well, and there was a lot of uncertainty. I’m holding my newborn baby and my wife’s not doing well, and just all those emotions of anxiety and fear and uncertainty start really circling. As a husband, you want to stay, ‘It’s okay. You’re going to do great.’ You want to be confident and supportive, but on the inside, you’re freaking out. Because I’ve seen codes before. I’ve seen situations like this go the wrong way. Then on the side of this, I’m an employee. I’m trying to support my position and represent well and advocate while still being a good steward of the role that I’ve been given by the health system. Long story short, we escalated. We had some providers come in, rush in, and do a lot of things quickly that got her back on the right track, which was really relieving. But I just remember those feelings. I remember seeing it and experiencing it and feeling like you have no control and no voice.

And so from that point, I always, in my role, dealt with grievances and complaints, family members and patients that had bad experiences. It’s not easy to do sometimes—empathize, and to meet people where they’re at—especially if you yourself haven’t maybe felt those feelings. But after that, I felt like it really helped me better understand and have patience with those situations . . . And so, that was probably a moment where it helped me really understand the significance of maybe my role, but really, more importantly, the role of the bedside nurse and the aides and the support staff and all the things that come in the healthcare experience.”  

“What I’ve learned is that storytelling makes the difference, and it helps paint the picture beyond data. And so, historically, there was always an uphill battle between the data and the legitimization of it, and whether it was right or wrong, and the sample size. I still stand behind that. It’s about helping tell a story, I think, sometimes really gets peoples’ eyes open. And, you know, we’ve made some significant changes to prevent friction. I’ll call it ‘friction’ in the health system because a lot of times we design things as a system for us and not necessarily with the patient in mind. And so we’ve tried to do a lot better job of, ‘Let’s walk the path of the patient. What are the steps that they’re going to take?’ Almost journey-mapping what that looks like, and is there friction, is there a breakdown?”

“When I started in health care, I was actually a transporter. That was my first job—moving patients and equipment and resources around. And I remember the first day of training, my trainer said, ‘You have two rules. The first one is: don’t get lost. This is a big place.’ To which I subsequently got lost, so that’s fine. And then the second one was, he says, ‘You’ve got to tell the what or explain the what.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He says, ‘Everything you do, explain it in a way they can understand, because it’s their health care. It could be their first time, it could be their last time, but you’ve got to make sure they have less anxiety and more confidence in you and in us.’ And so, I would think of ways to do that. ‘I’m going to lock the chair, so it doesn’t move. For your safety, I’m going to cover you with this blanket to provide your privacy and to keep you warm down the hallways. I’m going to wipe down the wheelchair to make sure it’s sanitary before you sit down.’ All the things that I would do, I would try to explain the what. And again, as you said, it saves time. It increases confidence, and it reduces anxiety.”  

“This is what I struggle with. I’m pretty impatient. I think maybe to some degree I’m pretty entitled. Coming out of college, I have a degree, I should be somewhere at this point—that’s kind of me. And then I’m a little insecure, and so I have to compensate with working harder. So I think the thing that I have learned is, you want to be ambitious, really ambitious—set a good goal for yourself. Where do you want to be? And then map that out. How do you get there? Do you network? Do you get a certain education? Do you get certain experience, maybe a combination of those three. And put in the work … 

Be ambitious, but be humble. And there’s a new book that I haven’t read it yet. It’s called Humbitious. I think it’s a perfect marriage of those two things, but with entitlement and impatience can come pride and arrogance, and that can be toxic. And I’ll be honest, starting out, I was that way. I was very hungry and didn’t matter what I had to do to get there and who I stepped on, and that was not the right way to get there. 

And another moment for me that really was meaningful was when I was leading a team and it came out in the survey that some of the members of the team felt like ‘You care more about the results than you do the people.’ It really stuck with me, because you can sometimes just get distracted. You can chase the wrong things. And at the end of the day, if we don’t have a good team, if we don’t have people that we invest in, results won’t be attained. And even if they are, you’re going to be left alone, and everyone’s going to see you that way.”  

“I really need to make sure that with humility and kind of being the overarching piece, I want to work on emotional intelligence, I want to make sure that my relationships are strong. I build those relationships for the long term because I think, again, you get a role and it opens your eyes, and you thought it was a certain way, and it’s not, and there’s opportunity. So I always try to read books or articles or listen to podcasts that really focus on self-development. And really, I have team members that report to me, I have direct reports, and they’re over in their own subsequent departments. And so really, to not forget to invest in them, and to be available, and to really help them through it. And you always see those pictures on LinkedIn or on whatever social platform, you see where it says a manager is the one sitting on the rock and yelling at the employees to carry it, and a leader is the one pulling the rope in front of them, trying to get them to where they need to go. And so for me, I’ve tried to really be diligent and very intentional about rounding consistently on staff and patients. Recognizing the small things and the big things. For instance, if they have a baby or if they have surgery, or if they get COVID, or whatever happens, take them a meal by their house (if they allow you to). But be intentional and write thank-you notes and celebrate birthdays and celebrate their anniversaries and just all the things that show them that you care and that you notice them and that you’re not so busy  (because we all are) that you can’t stop and really prioritize them over the job. Because the job tasks will always come. They’ll keep coming. But people really are—it’s a finite group, and we want them to do our very best to make them feel valued to stay.”

“As healthcare providers, we have a unique opportunity to make a moment matter, take something very routine and mundane for us and make it memorable for the patient. And I think it’s a calling, it’s an opportunity.”  

“I try to, for our employees, think about your worst day and what happened to you outside of these walls, maybe even in the walls. And then have some empathy about the patient that’s going through something probably a lot more significant. And let’s meet them, and let’s be a lifeline to them, because they’re looking for that. And I think that really establishes trust and hope.” 

“Words are like toothpaste. Once you get them out of that tube, you can’t easily put them back in. And so I try to be very careful about what I say and to not be defensive and to not be argumentative, but to listen.” 

“When they believe that compassion made my life easier, makes their life more enriched, and helps us get to the same outcome, it just makes that conversation a lot easier.”  

“The number-one reason that grievances and complaints happens is because of perception of attitude and a breakdown of communication.” 

“Anxiety is suffering. It’s the things we say, the things we don’t say, that can create that suffering that is hidden. And you can’t see it. Choose your words wisely.” 

“You have power in your words. And you’re gifted a very unique place in someone’s life journey, and so we’ve got to live it out well.”

“Be humble and learn. You don’t know everything. I’m still learning things today with my successes, with my setbacks, and just keep learning. Have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset, and I think that’ll help set you up for success.”