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Q&A With Quint Studer
BuIldInG a Culture of exCellenCe
Excellence in health care requires many ingredients — facilities, sound nancials, medical skills, and modern equipment among them. But without the vital involvement of two keystone factors — committed
people and a culture of care, nothing else matters. Nurturing a health care system’s people into this positive — engaged culture is vital. McLaren Health Care is making the task more inclusive by engaging the Studer
Group health care consultants to aid us in our transition.
Founder Quint Studer and his team are among the world’s most respected health care transformation agents. They partner with
health care organizations like McLaren, and with our people, to build a sustainable culture that promotes accountability, fosters innovation, and
consistently delivers a great patient experience and the best-quality outcomes. How? We asked Studer about how he’s engaging McLaren’s
employees in change, and what the future holds.
Q. What is the rst change priority you seek when you consult with a health care system?
A. The number one thing is engagement. The more engaged employees are, the better the patient safety. That means employee engagement
delivers things like fewer complications, fewer falls, and fewer errors.
Q. But isn’t it hard to focus on things like employee engagement with all the nancial pressures hospitals face today?
A. Yes, if you look at what’s happening in health care now, you’ve got to reduce costs but you have to improve processes at the same time. Engaged employees are more likely to work with administration to reduce costs, improve outcomes, and deliver positive patient experience.
Q. What about patients? How does such a big, strategic change bene t them?
A. First, they gain better access to care. Second, they’ll actually know who’s taking care of them, someone who can tell them how long a treatment will last, what results they should expect ... someone who explains their care better to them. They’ll have their questions answered, and their pain better managed.
Q. Why should McLaren Health Care take on such major changes as you’re proposing? They’re already one of Michigan’s most successful health care providers.
A. The thing that impresses me about McLaren is that any organization
with the success they’ve had could say, “Why do this? We’re already pretty successful.” But every organization reaches the point where you have to focus less on being bigger, and more on being better. James Collins [author of the business best-seller Good to Great] says that the thing that keeps most of us from being great is already being really good. McLaren is ready to make that move to greatness.
McLaren HeaLtH Care
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