Visualising the connection between decisions and outcomes enables a hospital to move from strategy to implementation, simplifying an over complicated transformation agenda and maximise use of resources.
Having completed its strategy, a hospital with turnover of over £400m was trying to deliver its change agenda but not achieving the desired progress. There was a sense of being busy but not much achievement. The problem was an overly complex change agenda with separate workstreams such as finance, quality, operations, workforce and continuous improvement. The unintended consequences were wastage of resources, increased costs, lack of transparency and low staff morale. Strasys was commissioned to redesign, replan and mobilise the Trust’s strategic roadmap – moving from strategy to delivering tangible results.
The Strasys approach
The art of effective planning is to manage change as a whole, negating the need for multiple distinct initiatives such as operational excellence, continuous improvement, cost reduction, process redesign, cultural change, charismatic leadership and financial incentives. Tapping into the collective wisdom of the organisation and injecting objectivity is critical.
Strasys setup up task group consisting of executives, clinicians and management to design, mobilise and execute the plan. A design thinking co-discovery and co-creation process consisting of several workshops took place. All existing change initiatives were filtered inline with the strategic objectives, and business cases were developed for new initiatives with sufficient detail to support the prioritisation process. A tool was developed to support the visualisation of the outcomes and benefits realisation.
A critical element of the engagement was the pursuit of simplicity and a single version of the truth. A key enabler was developing a narrative around the patient’s needs and behaviours moving away from a service and operation focus. This resulted in a massive reduction of projects and maximising the utilisation of limited resources.
Benefits
The outcome was a renewed energy within the organisation centred around a simplified single transformation plan, mobilised to deliver the Trust’s five-year strategy. Quality and cost improvement initiatives were absorbed into the overall plan, with the organisation focused on improving outcomes. This resulted in over a 50% reduction in projects and saved over £8million per annum on transformation costs – strategy to delivering tangible results.
