By request...

I thought long and hard about what to write about this weekend.  There were several great topics with a lot of potential that came to mind - Thanksgiving and gratitude, rivalry week in college football, transitions of power (see the recent transition in leadership in the country of Zimbabwe or all the college football head coaching changes announced this week), Presidential leadership (or in our case, the lack of Presidential leadership).  My wife, our youngest daughter, and I drove down South this past Wednesday for Thanksgiving (we met our other three kids in Atlanta - they all flew!).  Along the way, we stopped at a fast food restaurant right off the interstate.  There was a long line at the drive-through window (actually, they had two lines going side by side).  There were two workers taking orders on iPads and collecting payment by credit card.  They took my name down, so when it was our turn to drive up to the window, the worker in the restaurant confirmed my name and handed us our order.  Great efficiency and a really strong example of process improvement.  I thought about writing more on that episode.  However, I received a tweet on this same Wednesday afternoon that "requested" a post on a memo that the hospital administrators at Parkland Memorial Hospital sent out to their employees shortly after President John F. Kennedy died.  So here it goes, by request!

Both President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connelly were brought to the Emergency Department of Parkland Memorial Hospital on the afternoon of Friday, November 22, 1963 (fifty-four years ago this past Wednesday).  Two days later, Kennedy's accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was brought to Parkland after being shot as well.  While Governor Connelly survived, as everyone knows, both Kennedy and Oswald died.  While hospitals like Parkland Memorial Hospital deal with trauma victims every single day, very few are forced to deal with such high-profile trauma victims as a Governor, U.S. President, and assassin, all in the span of two days.  In response, the hospital administration sent out this letter:
The letter is very well written and acknowledges the unique situation that the employees at Parkland Memorial Hospital dealt with in just the short span of two days.  We see here a great example of crisis leadership, and I think there are probably three takeaway lessons for health care leaders today.

First, point #7 above is critically important.  Even during a crisis, hospitals have to function as they normally do - patients still come and go, families and visitors still come and go.  The rest of the world does not stop, just because one particular health care organization is in the middle of a crisis.  I remember my own personal experience of a mass casualty emergency when I was in the Navy.  Our hospital was dealing with a mass influx of trauma patients as a result of a airplane crash.  But even while our emergency department and operating room suites were dealing with the trauma victims, our labor and delivery unit was still delivering babies, and our nursery was still dealing with a sick newborn.  Life goes on - even during a crisis.

Second, and even more important, health care leaders must show gratitude.  When?  The best answer is "all of the time."  However, showing gratitude with a public acknowledgement of thanks is absolutely essential after a crisis (ideally as soon as possible after the crisis has started to subside - though some would say that gratitude is important throughout the crisis).  Here, the administration of Parkland Memorial Hospital acknowledged the very unique situation that their teams of physicians and nurses experienced during those two long days in November, 1963.  Remember that the nation was mourning the death of a very much beloved President.  Parkland employees were dealing with more than that - the assassination of a U.S. President was the most important news of the day, so they also had to contend with the news media from around the world.  Gratitude, even a simple "Thank you", tells the entire organization that the leadership understands and acknowledges what their teams are dealing with.  The display of gratitude should be meaningful and from the heart.  The display of gratitude should be personal and public. 

Third, as soon as possible after the crisis has passed, organizations absolutely must gather the facts and conduct a thorough After Action Report of their experience.  No matter what the cause, there is a lot to learn from how an organization functions during a crisis.  Leaders should never let an opportunity to learn from a crisis go to waste.  I suspect that Parkland Memorial learned a lot about how their hospital functioned with two very high profile trauma victims.  They likely learned a lot about how their media relations team functioned with an extremely stressful set of circumstances.  The key for any organization is to leverage what is learned in a crisis and improve upon their response for the next time.