Improving the Patient Journey

Hardy Group International strongly recommends the Improving the Patient Journey Forum 31 May 1 June in Christchurch New Zealand. The forum aims to explore how health services can achieve significant quality and patient experience benefits. It will be an opportuntiy to explore the wider application of Lean Thinking and system design principles and how to find effective ways to absorb the growth in demand within existing resources.

This is an exciting opportunity to explore the challenges facing all health systems and walk away with real take home messages and applications. Please click on the link below to download the flyer.

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HGI would like to congratulate one of our Learning Set members

Media Statement - Ministry of Health NZ
Hon Tony Ryall

The Government has announced that the new Health and Disability Commissioner is Anthony Hill, currently a Deputy Director-General at the Ministry of Health. 
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Malcolm Stamp's note on the House of Commons Commissioning Report

HGI Insight Newsletter
Malcolm Stamp

HGI has invited Macolm Stamp Chief Executive Officer, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, to provide comment on the "House of Commons, Committee of Public Accounts, HM Revenue & Customs' estate private finance deal eight years on, United Kingdom".

Click on the download PDF link below to download the Report.

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Health Reform- When Too Much is Never Enough

HGI Insight Newsletter
Geoff Lavender

For those of us who are health system junkies, the past few months have been full of interest and expectation.  Reviews and reform proposals in the US, in New Zealand and in Australia have given us much to think and talk about.  And those who are not directly involved as professionals in the healthcare systems of our countries will have been aware of some of these debates.  (In some instances they might have preferred not to know, given the full-on media coverage!) 

Some of the common themes (or perhaps more accurately, some of the common rhetoric) across the Obama healthcare reforms, the changes flowing from the New Zealand Horn report, and the national health and hospitals network proposed more recently by the Australian Government include:
• stronger clinical and management partnerships (especially at service provider level);
• shifting resources to the front-line; and
• improving hospital productivity

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Salvation Army

Mike Scrafton

On behalf on Hardy Group International, Mike Scrafton was privileged to address the Salvation Army Aged Care Division’s national annual senior managers conference in Wollongong on 18 February.  Mike shared with the 60 or so attendees his views on the different imperatives that distinguished leadership from management. » Read more 

First Impressions

HGI Insight
Geoff Lavender

As a newcomer to HGI, perhaps readers – and my HGI colleagues – will allow me a little latitude in making some personal reflections on my first couple of months in the role.  I commenced in early November in the newly-created position of Executive Director Leadership & Learning – responsible for the learning sets, coaching and executive professional development side of our business, as well as representing the firm in Victoria. » Read more 

Turnkey Solutions

HGI Insight
John Mollett

Elsewhere in this newsletter, Kevin, as part of his article on “Organizational Gold in 2010”, introduced the notion of the “Turn-key Solution” (TKS). The idea behind TKS, or, as it may alternatively be thought of, “The Integrated Solution”, is to provide added value to the client, be it an individual, or an organization, and, in this instance HGI, as partnerships are formed to facilitate,

• executive recruitment
• professional and/or personal development
• executive placement

In our context, what does that mean, how does it work, and why do we believe it does provide that measure of “added value”? » Read more 

On The Front Foot

HGI Insight Newsletter
Stephen Flemming

STEPHEN FLEMING confesses that nowadays he's a little like Jerry Maguire. The former cricketing great does a good impersonation of Tom Cruise's ‘show me the money!' and talked candidly to ANDREW GREGORY about his learning curve in business over the last twelve months. HardyGroup International would like to thank IN-BUSINESS Wellington Magazine and the journalist, Andrew Gregory, for allowing us to include part of this interview in the HGI Insight e-Newsletter.
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A fresh perspective on performance

HGI Insight Newsletter
Frank Tracey

As part of its commitment to supporting community development HGI recently provided a series of training workshops to the well known Sydney based organisation Father Chris Riley's: Youth Off The Streets(YOTS). Youth Off The Streets is a youth-specific charity based in New South Wales, assisting young people deal with issues of substance and other abuse, alienation from family and community and homelessness. » Read more 

THE RISING THERMOMETER IN HEALTH - Overcoming the increasing costs of workforce productivity issues in the health sector

HGI Insight Newsletter
Jim Birch, Lead Partner, Health and Human Services, Ernst & Young

Workforce issues in the health sector
It is well known that health services are faced with unprecedented patient demand at a time of national and international workforce shortages in key clinical disciplines. The impact of workforce shortage is in-creased labour costs, driven largely by one-sided enterprise bargaining negotiations and an inability to obtain services across a range of disciplines.

 

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THE 5TH AUSTRALASIAN REDESIGNING HEALTHCARE SUMMIT

HGI Insight Newsletter
Michael Szwarcbord and Rosie Adams

In 2004 years Flinders Medical Centre held a conference to showcase the use of Lean Thinking in the healthcare setting and to enable health care staff from around Australia to hear about Lean Thinking from some of the world experts. 

I was Chief Executive at the time and I was convinced that the benefits to be derived from Lean Thinking in quality and safety, as well as in efficiency, could make a profound difference to the healthcare system at large.  I was however most concerned that whilst Lean Thinking was the domain of a single hospital it was vulnerable to the destructive vagaries of the health system and could easily disappear before anyone would appreciate how powerful it was as an integrated management system. Hence the first conference was held to try and build momentum.

My colleague Rosie Adams describes this year's conference.

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Professor Stephen Duckett leaves Queensland Health to take up an appointment in Canada.

HGI Insight Newsletter
Michael Reid

Professor Duckett was Secretary of the Australian Health Department from 1994 - 1996 and has held leadership positions in the Victorian Health Department.

 

 

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IMD Leading business school.Real World. Real Learning

HGI Insight Newsletter
Margot Hurwitz

HGI has undertaken to bring to you information about exceptional learning and development programs that we hear about first hand through our associates and trusted networks. Recently, Margot Hurwitz, Managing Director – Products, Fresenius Medical Care Australia and New Zealand participated in such a program. » Read more 

Is it possible to reduce surgical error in our hospitals? "Yes, we can!"

HGI Insight Newsletter
Dr Michael Smith

Every year more than 2 million people undergo a surgical operating room procedure across Australia and New Zealand . It is now clear that the rate death associated with those operations is around one person in 200 and, in addition, one person in every 10 suffers a preventable event that causes them harm. » Read more  » Download PDF

Senior Leadership Teams

Leadership Development Centre - Hay/Harvard Research
Presented by Ruth Wageman and Jim Burrows

The Hay/Harvard research has revealed six conditions for a highly effective senior team: three essentials or foundations, and three enablers or accelerators.

LDC (Leadership Development Centre) partnered with the Hay Group and Harvard Business School authors of a major study on the requirements for effective senior leadership teams.  They conducted several seminars and conversations with senior leaders (many of them with their teams present) in Wellington in November 2008.  A recent survey we conducted of our member agencies showed that lifting the effectiveness of their senior teams was their number one organisational priority.   

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Pressure at the top

Hospitals & Healthcare - News Extra
Kathy Stone

Turnover and burnout – two words common in the lexicon of public hospital managers, but is the grass greener beyond the revolving door? Kathy Stone investigates.

- Hardy Group International (HGI) is a private firm specialising in the recruitment and development of executives, primarily for the public sector, and has about 35 hospital CEOs from across Australia and New Zealand involved in learning sets and executive coaching. Many of them are introduced, at least initially, by their area health service.

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