Everyone who participated shared similar thoughts…mostly amazement at the choices we were forced to make, and how complicated the safety net was. It built a whole lot of sympathy, and more importantly got the room thinking on how services might be more seamless, timely and precise. And that is what a good simulation should do.
Simulations can hard to pull off. This one provided three nuggets on how to make them better:
What are your nuggets?
The Innovation Learning Network made the gossip columns and I couldn’t be prouder. The “gossiper” grabbed a hilarious quote from a great collaborator, Kevin Colin of Via Christi Health (http://bit.ly/9tECXK). Another article spends the first three paragraphs describing the space and environment followed by the same quote (http://t.co/R2lTbm8). What both of these reporters picked up on was the relaxed atmosphere that was created for these two collaborators to candidly share their experiences. This “atmosphere” is called hygge pronounced (hyoo-ga) and it was very intentional.
Hygge is Danish. I stumbled on it while completing my MBA at Copenhagen Business School. The city of Copenhagen oozes with hygge. The best I can describe it is warm, cozy, comfy and content. The official Danish tourist website spends 14 paragraphs trying to explain it. Suffice to say it doesn’t really translate into English.
I use hygge for re-imagining how healthcare should be. I use hygge to create both my work and home environments. I use hygge to welcome co-workers and friends into experiences. I use hygge when I cook and entertain. And I ALWAYS use hygge when constructing the semi-annual Innovation Learning Network InPerson Meeting where these two collaborators gave us that newspaper worthy “fireside” chat.
Wanna give hygge a try?
Pull some cozy chairs together, gather a few people that you are fascinated by, dim the lights, light 5 candles randomly placed, and uncork a good bottle of red wine. Finally take a deep breath….smile. And feel the hygge.
I have to thank Lew McCreary, author of the Harvard Business Review Sept 2010 article “Kaiser Permanente’s Innovation on Front Lines”, for the surge in emails subjected “raspberry scrubs”. For the record they are “merlot”…and you can find photos here. So many people have asked me, “really?” And yes, really.
Lets be clear here. I am not a nurse, a doctor, or a pharmacist. In fact I have no clinical training except as first responder 15 years ago so that I could land that awesome lifeguard job on Cape Cod’s National Seashore. I am however a design thinker, but not a “Designer”. In layman terms that makes me a jack of all trades in the design world. I explore. I think. I build. I test. I measure. I beg. I cheer. I manage. I smile. I cry. I laugh.
To be a good explorer, we choose to blend in with the locals the best we can. Most of our work has been hospital-based these past 7 years, and scrubs are the most ubiquitous clothing in this setting beside the hospital gown… and yes, we’ve worn the gowns too! By blending in it allows us to not distort the scene so much. Clinicians can focus on being clinicians and patients can focus on being patients. And we scrubbed “design thinkers” can absorb the realness of what is happening before us – the wonderful, terrible, and average. We can peek into those workarounds. We can see the side work, side conversations, and side pain.
I would not see this if I were dressed as a business dude. I would not see this if I was dressed as a “Designer”. So yes, raspberry scrubs are important. Very important.
Next time you want to see the realness of what is happening in your system, wear what people in your system wear, go shake their hand, have an open mind, closed mouth, and ready heart, and see their world with their eyes. You will be amazed.