Value Champion

Module 2: Engaging Leadership for High Value Care

This module provides participants with an overview of how to engage leadership throughout the project and provides practical tips on how to create and sustain this engagement.

Overview 

Engaging leadership in today’s chaotic healthcare environment is a challenge.  And for the Clinical Value Champion, it is critical!  Your project needs a “sponsor,” a respected leader who will publicly endorse your work, help you find the resources you need, and connect you to others in your organization. There are books, articles and ample resources about engaging leadership, and this module is not intended to be comprehensive. Rather 6 tips used by clinical champions to engage leadership to provide high value care will be summarized.  The first four tips pertain to project sponsors or senior leaders, the fifth takes a broader view of leadership, and the sixth turns the spotlight on you as a leader.  Some favorite leadership resources are listed as well. 

Learning Objectives

1. Describe how the health care leaders in your setting think about organizational strategies and priorities.
2. Plan a strategy for eliciting sustained leadership support in your setting.
3. Execute your strategy to engage with leadership about your overuse reduction project.

Reading Assignments

Six tips for Engaging Leaders in your Value Champion Overuse Project

RWJF Value Champions White Paper. September 2020. This reading was written by one of the RWJF Clinical Value Champions, Elizabeth Vossenkemper, and her mentor, Kathy Reims. It summarizes her experience engaging leadership within her community health center by providing “tips” you can use to do so.

• Citation: Vossenkemper E. Reims K. “Six tips for Engaging Leaders in your Value Champion Overuse Project”

How to Speak so Healthcare Leaders Listen

This white paper describes how to craft your messaging to leaders of healthcare organizations in a manner that they will understand and connect with.

• Institute for Healthcare Improvement

High-Impact Leadership: Improve Care, Improve the Health of Populations, and Reduce Costs

The purpose of this reading is to help you understand how health care leaders think so that you can engage them more effectively in eliciting support for your project.

• Citation: Swensen S, Pugh M, McMullan C, Kabcenell A. High-Impact Leadership: Improve Care, Improve the Health of Populations, and Reduce Costs. IHI White Paper. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Institute for Healthcare Improvement; 2013. (Available at ihi.org) Internet Available 8/14/2020

Resources

National Webinar by Elizabeth Vossenkemper & Kathy Reims

This is a recorded webinar presented by one of the RWJF Clinical Value Champions, Elizabeth Vossenkemper, and her mentor, Kathy Reims, describing practical tips for engaging leadership in any healthcare organization.

TED Talk: “Start With Why” - Simon Sinek  

This highly recommended TED talk provides insights into how one should approach a discussion with leadership about support for a value champion led high-value care program.