SAG to help VA Become More Data-Driven

by Everett A. Chasen, Associate

When Eric K. Shinseki became Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2009, he brought President Obama’s vision to transform VA into a 21^st century organization with him.  The Secretary established sixteen ‘transformational initiatives,” designed to create a Department that is people-centric, forward thinking, and results-oriented.  One of those initiatives is to “use evidence and data in decision making on a more regular basis.”  At the request of VA Under Secretary for Health Randy Petzel, Sinclair Associate Albert (Al) Washko is helping to realize this initiative throughout the Veterans Health Administration.

Washko, who was the Director of the VA Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System from 2003 until his retirement last March, has a long track record of successfully using data to improve performance at the health care facilities both within and outside of government and VHA region he has managed.  Among those facilities were VA’s Northeast Region, which he directed from 1985 to 1989; VA’s Albany Medical Center, which he also directed; and the New England Deaconess hospital in Boston, where he was both the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer.  At Nebraska, Al and his staff developed a field analytics model designed to increase the use of data at every level throughout the facility.

Among the staff’s initiatives was creating a series of five University-based courses to improve the analytic capabilities of higher-level staff.  More than 150 VA employees throughout the nation have already signed up for one or more of these courses, which are Internet-based and ten weeks in duration.  Front-line staff was also trained in data analysis by being paired with a higher-level advisor who provided advice, support and guidance on the subject on a regular basis. 

As CEO of the health care system, Washko met regularly with each of the system’s many management teams.  At those meetings, he made it clear that good data was an essential component of the facility’s decision-making processes, and that data was regularly reported from teams (which included employees from all segments of the medical center) to senior managers. Now, as a Sinclair Associate, Al will work with senior managers at other VA hospitals to institute evidence-based decision-making at their facilities, based on the Nebraska model.

VA has just awarded a contract to SAG to provide coaching and leadership support to help make other VHA facilities more data-driven.  Under the terms of the contract, Al will help senior managers at twelve VA facilities throughout the nation to implement the Omaha model for approximately one year.  If this proves successful, VA and SAG hope to roll out the project to the entire nation.

Washko will make a presentation on this project at VHA’s next Senior Management Conference in August, and will work with VHA to select the “early adopter” pilot sites following that discussion. “Because this project is attached to the Secretary’s Transformation Initiatives, it already has a lot of visibility and enjoys a lot of support,” he says.  “I think we’re filling an important need for the organization.”  

What Leaders Should Expect From Their HR Departments

by Gary Rossio, Associate

What should a leadership team expect from its Human Relations staff and leadership—and what should HR staff be able to deliver?  That’s the question I recently attempted to answer as a guest speaker at a leadership conference for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) HR managers and supervisors.  I thought my response might be interesting to others, as well.

HR employees need to be, and to perceive themselves as being, an important part of their organization’s mission—in VHA’s case, as members of their facility’s patient care team. Their vital mission is to find and keep the kinds of people who will build a successful patient care culture throughout the organization on behalf of the patients they help serve.  

They can best do this by helping organization leaders create a consistent culture in which successful employees are rewarded, and appropriate accountability is provided for those who do poor work. Fairness in these daily efforts helps build morale, which has a direct impact on patient care and on an organization’s best asset, its people, who can then not only contribute, but thrive.

Too often in the past, I have felt that senior HR employees believed their role was to “protect” their directors and other supervisors from unions and lawsuits and difficult situations leading to inaction by supervisors and management.  Conversely, exceptional HR work and sound professional advice led to successful patient care goal accomplishment.   

In my experience, “protection” was never necessary--but balance and fairness always is. As a VA Medical Center CEO for sixteen years, I always wanted—and needed—to know which options, retrainings, systems improvements, Douglas factors, and innovative solutions could come to bear in each case.   Good leaders need sound advice and expertise: not protection.

This is a time of great pressure on all Federal employees, especially those who are entrusted with leadership responsibilities.  Demands for performance and accountability are rising, while resources are shrinking.  Add to that an increasingly litigious workforce and the accelerated pace of retirement among those with the kind of experience that is invaluable in dealing with complicated HR issues, and it is clear that managers and patient care teams who do not have a solid and savvy HR advisors are in deep trouble.

Sound advice, technical support, and the ability to spot, hire and help retain talented people—that’s what a good HR department, at the Department of Veterans Affairs or in any organization, should be able to provide.  Not only should VA HR departments see themselves as part of the patient care team, but they should also understand that they are key to any good organization’s patient care success.  For despite all the technological advances that have been made in the world recently, no one has yet found a way to create or maintain a successful organization without good people, a workforce in which everyone makes meaningful contributions to accomplishing the mission, and a winning culture.

This may sound like “new age” thinking, but it’s not.  It’s just a request for exceptional leadership in an important area at a time when it is most needed.  Having a strong HR staff and dynamic HR leadership is the surest way to obtain the ingredients for the kind of up-tempo patient care team VA patients have earned and of which VA staff can be proud.