What Do You Mean?

Quality. Access. Sustainability.

Certain words need definition. Without it, they are quite meaningless.

With greater clarity, we can create organizational focus, drive, and even results.

Quality

When I pass a truck bearing the words high quality, I often wonder “What do they mean by quality? And would their customers have the same meaning?”

In healthcare, quality is essential. There are oversight organizations who set base standards. Yet most organizations have a much higher aim than a threshold.

For some, quality means having physicians from top medical schools.

For others, being in the Top 10% nationally on key clinical metrics.

Still for others, it means consistently exceeding customer’s expectations for timeliness of care.

Others define it by the absence of adverse events.

It is not an exercise of merely putting words on a page. But rather guided by strategic discussion about what quality looks like, the range of possibilities, and from that declaring a particular goal as an organization.

With clarity in words, one can then determine a set of key metrics to determine how well we are achieving our aim.

For one of my clients, this has led to the development of a new set of quality metrics that had not been monitored in the past. This is where magic happens. They now can use these measurements, tracked over time, to examine their level of quality and intervene with purposeful improvements.

For another client, quality is defined relative to their sector and region. They use a set of benchmarks to both define and monitor their quality. In doing so, over the past two years, they have moved up one to two quartiles across a half a dozen different quality indicators.

For yet another, quality is about delivering outcomes that exceed customer’s individualized treatment goals.

It is one thing to say we are high quality and another to declare it with both clear words and defined metrics.

Access

Access is another one of those words, often stated as an organizational goal, that begs for definition.

Do we mean that our products and services are available in a variety of places?

Do we mean that people can readily get to us?

Do we mean that we go to our customers to serve them where they are?

Or do we mean that we use a variety of modalities so that people can use our services at any time (24×7) and/or from any location (including virtually)?

Further, do we mean that our service offerings are widely available to a lot of people? Or rather that our offerings are usable and user-friendly to those who are typically under-served in our communities?

All good intentions…but which do we seek for our program?

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Kathy Letendre, President and Founder of Letendre & Associates, advises organizations and leaders to create their excellence advantage.
Contact Kathy by phone or text at 802-779-4315 or via email.