Board of Directors Meeting - 29 March 2012 - Devon Partnership ...

Board of Directors Meeting, 29 March 2012Agenda Item 4a (Minute 033/12 refers)Appendix 1Healthcare lessons learned from the Pacific NorthwestBy Hugh GrovesDirector of FinanceDevon Partnership NHS TrustIn September of 2011, I was fortunate enough to participate in a sponsored studytour of six health organisations in Seattle. Organised by The King’s Fund, the tourprovided an excellent opportunity for clinicians and managers to witness, first-hand,what goes on inside the Pacific Northwest’s finest healthcare organisations and todraw some interesting comparisons with what we are doing back here in the UK.Healthcare providers in the United States lead the world in many aspects ofperformance and service integration and, in particular, we were interested infocusing on issues related to:Quality and costExperienced-based design and patient-centred servicesWorld class leadership and technological innovationOrganisational, environmental and personal sustainability.The six organisations that we visited on the tour were the Veterans Affairs healthcentre, The Everett Clinic, Harborview Medical Centre, Virginia Mason MedicalCentre, Group Health and Wenatchee Valley Medical Centre.Our key learning objectives were around relationships and accountability betweenorganisations in a complex system; the improvement of both quality and productivity,the development of workplaces where creativity and learning can flourish and therobust management of clinical systems and performance. We were also interestedin finding out more about ‘hot’ topics such as greater choice among commissioners,new and different funding systems, patient safety, clinical leadership andaccountability.Page 19 of 156