Learn from HealthCare.gov failure to survive healthcare change

by Kent Bottles Healthcare leaders need to read "Code Red: Inside the nightmare launch of HealthCare.gov and the team that figured out how to fix it." Steven Brill's article in the March 10, 2014, issue of Time is a must-read for several reasons. Every hospital system leader can learn valuable lessons about what to do and what not to do when leading large organizations in an industry that has rarely encountered so much complexity and change in such a short period of time. In my experience, planning for such an important and complicated project--such as the launch of the Affordable Care Act's exchange website--requires clarity and agreement on the vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan and leadership long before the actual work begins. Ignoring any one of these requirements usually results in confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration or false starts. The contrast between the initial process and the "quickly assembled fix-it team" is stark and instructive. If Brill's analysis is correct, it appears the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' initial planning lacked all six requirements described above, which are needed to successfully implement complex change. In what reads like a novel, Brill describes in horrifying detail an initial CMS failure: Nobody was in charge of the project Multiple contractors fought with each other and nobody took ownership for any part of the project Lack of coordination led to three separate war rooms at CMS hea...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs