From Invisible to Visible - Positive Deviance Initiative

This narrative is dedicated to
Jerry Sternin (1938-2008)
Positive Deviance Pioneer
A believer in the wisdom of all people,
he helped to unleash that wisdom to save, and improve,
the lives of millions around the world.
Since 2005, Jerry worked with the Plexus Institute and a nationwide network of
hospitals that are using the behavior change process Positive Deviance (PD) in
their efforts to eliminate MRSA, a deadly pathogen that kills as many as 20,000
US hospital patients each year. Three days before he passed away, Jon Lloyd, a
surgeon and Plexus Institute’s Senior Clinical Advisor on MRSA prevention, visited
Jerry in a Boston hospital. Jon had just returned from the recent Institute for
Healthcare Improvement National Forum meeting in Nashville, where the hospitals
participating in the Positive Deviance approach presented data on statistically
significant reductions in MSRA rates, attributable in large measure to the PD
processes that were unleashed. “Jerry was unable to speak, but almost busted my
hand with a purposeful squeeze when he heard the good news,” Jon reported to
colleagues in the MRSA initiative. “His eyes projected great pride.”
Who knows—perhaps Jerry was thinking about his fall 2006 visit to Montana,
accompanied by his wife, Monique, to launch the positive deviance initiative at
Billings Clinic.
The Sternins, along with the hundreds of frontline staff members at Billings
Clinic, thus represent the real authors of the narrative that unfolds.
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