Awakening "human potential" is decisive in healthcare management

In any organization, the essence of good management should be the daily practice of creating and strengthening, in leaders and those they lead, a different perception of how problems need to be brought to light and solved. This lays the foundations for what we could truly characterize as continuous improvement.

It is not a simple thing to do. It is linked to people's ability to question the work they do – and how they do it –, as well as to understand the impact of their actions and how those actions affect customers. In this sense, the work of management should be focused on awakening this “human potential”.

This is essential in every type of activity. In one of them, however, it is perhaps even more important: the healthcare sector. For two very direct reasons: the processes are complex and highly dependent on people. Ultimately, despite the enormous advances in technology, healthcare is still delivered by human hands.

Hospitals are among the most complex organizations there are. There is a high degree of interdependence between the different stages of care and the functional areas involved. Processes are rarely aligned and synchronized. Traditionally, barriers to flow prevent care from happening in the most integrated, agile and correct way, without rework, waiting and insecurity for the patient.

That is why structuring management in a hospital is always a great challenge. In this world, before being customers, people are patients. That changes everything. Things that, in other contexts, might even be considered “normal” cannot be so in healthcare management. “Waiting” can cost lives. “Errors” may leave no room for “rework”.

When we talk about the need to awaken “human potential” for continuous improvement, perhaps there is no greater need than to do so through the main agents of management in this sector: health professionals, such as doctors and nurses, who end up occupying leadership positions and go to great lengths to learn how to manage, make decisions and develop other people. Unfortunately, the schools that train health professionals do not prepare them to manage and lead.

In this context, the lean way of managing can fit like a surgical glove. Fundamental concepts and practices seem to make even more sense in healthcare. Eliminating problems at their root causes, so that they never happen again. Doing it right the first time, every time. Reducing (or even eliminating) errors and the chances of error in each and every type of work. Increasing the ability to ensure safety and effectiveness in everything that is done. Eliminating waste in all processes, carrying out only and exclusively activities that create value. Developing people continuously so that they themselves do all of this, every day...

Those who work in the field know that the summary above, the foundations of lean thinking, is what should happen every day in small and large hospitals. Although it was born in industry, perhaps there is no mindset and method better suited than this one for us to contribute to the evolution of the sector.

It is not easy, but it is possible. There are numerous examples, cases, experiences, facts and data proving that healthcare organizations are extremely fertile ground for these ideas. The opportunities are abundant, and the needs, pressing.

However, we have to make it happen. Waiting while “sitting” on old mindsets and traditional practices will never solve chronic problems. It is necessary to seek this knowledge, learn, implement and practice. It is a process that demands an active stance.

We need to go for it, but not as a one-off, localized effort dedicated to solving a specific problem here or there. It must be a permanent strategy, involving all levels and areas of organizations. So that it is sustainable, without depending on “fads” or on the “heroes on duty”.

Of course, making mistakes is part of life. No one is perfect all the time. Human beings remain fallible. However, in the healthcare sector, management does have the obligation to continuously build robust and optimized processes. The pursuit of the best performance in quality, safety and cost should be the soul, the motto, the essence of this sector.

This will only truly materialize if the people who work in this field can, in a concrete and effective way, have the opportunity and the conditions to pursue “perfection”. It means awakening in them the potential, sometimes dormant, to understand how to be better every day.