The Grey Area of Hospital Transactions
October 22, 2009 by Anne Hancock
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m a loyal fan of the ABC TV show Grey’s Anatomy . Apparently, I do not get enough of the politics and drama of healthcare in my day job.
For those of you with far more intelligent uses of your time, Grey’s is a fiction medical drama based in Seattle. The plot lines generally follow an ER meets Days of our Lives theme. You know, bus crash injures 17 people, five residents duke it out to make chief resident, and it turns out the Chief of Staff had an affair with an intern’s mother 30 years ago. Gotta love Hollywood.
But, lately, I’ve been interested to see played out on television a scenario that many of our hospital clients experience in reality. It's a scenario some analysts are reporting is only likely to increase. For financial reasons, the Board of Directors of Seattle Grace – the show's make-believe Level I Trauma center and teaching hospital – votes to merge with cross-town rival Mercy West. The fallout is messy. Resistance to change. Layoffs. Culture clash. Physicians and nurses competing for patients. A wrongful termination lawsuit.
Sound familiar? While the drama misses the mark on a number of things, the disruption that’s captured is real. It’s a reminder that every hospital merger – no matter how necessary or reasonable – affects real people all asking the same question: what does this mean for me?
Even if you don’t have all the answers, communicating – often and openly – with your employees and physicians during times of duress and change is key to the success of a transaction. Meet with them regularly. Give them updates as you have them. Give them reasons to stay and support you. Listen.
But, it doesn’t stop there. Time and again, we see hospitals or systems merge, communicate thoroughly through the storm, and then stop communicating once the layoffs are over and the operations are integrated.
For long-term success, healthcare leaders must be prepared to listen and respond… and listen again. Even if the outside world notices little difference and the hospital signage hasn’t changed, you’re running a new hospital. Why? Because, culture is king. And when two clashing cultures come together, you cannot expect a seamless melding of forces. If you fail to recognize this and fail to deal with it, your organization will be plagued by infighting and distrust for many years to come.
Tune in Thursday… It’ll be interesting to see how the ABC writers play this one out on my favorite melodrama. They could take lessons from a few hospitals I know.
