Jargon of Medical Enterprises.

Vice President, Performance Excellence - Mid Atlantic Region

Executive Management

The institution from which I retired and regard with great fondness posted a recruiting ad which came to me passively via Facebook as a subscriber to the organization's postings.  I clicked the bold print title which took me to the parent institution's Job Opportunities.  The job expectations and requirements took about half a page.  Even though I have forty years experience with patient care and I thought a good grasp of when we excel and when we fall short, apparently Excellence that we strive for could use a task master to achieve.  And all this time at all the Physicians Network quarterly meetings they made me attend lest I forfeit my achievement bonus, they told us collectively what a great group of physicians we were.  And I think the conveyed assessment was correct, there are no grander, more dedicated and reasonably knowledgeable group of medical school graduates that I have encountered.  But apparently we still underperform, or do we?

So here's the description, with the organization's identity omitted, with the assumption that this could be anyplace in contemporary consolidated medicine.


The Regional Vice President, Performance Excellence will assist the Chief Executive Officer and Regional Leadership Team in change management, process improvement, lean implementation, Operational Excellence Improvement (OEI) and Transforming Operations (TO).
The Regional Vice President Performance Excellence has accountability for the oversight of performance improvement activities within <identity omitted> and will lead the organization's implementation of a lean management and production system. This role will assist senior leaders in the strategic deployment that propels <identity omitted> to top tier operational performance. The Regional Vice President Performance Excellence will support operational leaders and clinical units in the development of high performance operating plans and efficient deployment of resources. The individual who holds this position will exemplify the <identity omitted> mission, vision and values and acts in accordance with policies and procedures.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
? Master's Degree in Systems Management or Business Administration with a minimum of five years' experience in complex industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, etc.
? Leads the development of performance improvement plans and collaborates with departmental leadership to develop operational goals linked to the performance improvement plans
? Fosters a culture of shared ownership for outcomes-driven improvement.
? Provides leadership for design and implementation of an effective and ongoing program to monitor, evaluate and improve the financial performance, efficiency and growth initiatives for the region
? Provides leadership for the system performance improvement program, including performance management and improvement training and operational excellence initiatives
? Creates a system-wide "lean" and/or other process improvement culture and is dedicated to coaching and driving operational efficiencies.
? Partners with clinical and non-clinical leadership across the enterprise to identify opportunities for greater organizational efficiency and process improvement
? Drives lean improvement initiatives in concert with leadership partners including initiatives related to waste and/or cost reduction.
? Establishes national benchmarking standards to improve operations by identifying best practice methodologies from within healthcare and other high performance industries.
? Integrates innovation into the redesign of systems and processes to ensure optimal outcomes and value
? Serves as a member of various organizational work groups, committees and teams to include serving as a member of the Regional Leadership Team
? Serves as a change agent and champion to drive organizational transformation in alignment with strategy and vision

 Now I am a college graduate with a solid if not spectacular verbal SAT score who endured many a class that required composition directed at making me proficient at expressing myself in an understandable way.  There is not a single word in this description that I do not understand as vocabulary..  About half the phrases I do not understand are those otherwise familiar words are strung together in sequence.  Could use a little help here, either from other experienced though likely younger doctors or maybe from people who thing they are qualified to pursue this opportunity, which I suspect pays more than they paid me.  My gestalt, shaded by modern experience, is that this is the update of what 1970's era physicians were taught as Buff & Turf.  Make the patient seem healthier than they really are, or in this case create the illusion that the doctors were more effective than they really were.  Oh, and do it with fewer doctors and nurses.

Did I come close?

Too many analysts and overseers, not enough value to those of us who contact the patients skin to skin, or even blue vinyl to skin.

Doctors in the Wrong Half

http://furrydoc.blogspot.com/2019/10/two-americas-reaches-doctors.html 

I try not to merge my personal blog with my medical one, or even immerse myself in political positions, but the intersection here was just too inviting.

For whatever reasons, I am situated in the prosperous part of America as are my children.  We have professional degrees, economic stability, take personal and political positions that are in strong opposition not just to depravity itself but to its enablers.  It's part of the politically Blue America with little crossover and barriers to entry to those not already there.

Many doctors seem to have averted this intersectionality.  Sermo in my opinion has deteriorated, not just changed, into an echo chamber of thought that the posters probably wouldn't want on their office doors with their real names and Photo ID's.  Yet they have my same education, most a higher income if not greater net worth.  I don't know any of these frequent right wing posters personally, and very few in my professional interactions.  I suspect they are not the cohort that gets invited to present at national meetings, as medicine has its upper and lower hierarchy just as medicine does.

I suspect that we have slid in the direction of wage earners besieged and trying to hang on in an increasingly insecure professional world.  It comes not only at the expense of the autonomy which so many of us mourn, but also at the inherent dignity of medicine.  The posts that increasingly dominate Sermo are a too often long way from benevolent with virtually no one interested in refuting it.  If I, as a person loyal to medicine opt to walk away from this forum rather than stake my claim, it won't take long for the public to appreciate this as well and write us off as the Lesser Half of America.