Winter falls...Multnomah Falls - Oregon, USA

Winter falls

* Multnomah Falls - Oregon, USA.

Worlds End State Park - Pennsylvania, USA

Worlds End State Park - Pennsylvania, USA

2007 NADA Convention, Jack Welch

Bill Gates Speech at Harvard (part 1)

Bill Gates Speech at Harvard (part 2)

Bill Gates Speech at Harvard (part 3)

Bill Gates Speech at Harvard (part 4)

Bill Gates Speech at Harvard (part 5)

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Providence California Region Vying For Six Sigma Awards

Providence Health & Services - California Region has been named as one of three finalists for The Global Six Sigma Award in Healthcare. The Global Six Sigma Awards, provided by WCBF Six Sigma Solutions, honors the most outstanding organizational achievements through the application of Six Sigma methodologies. Six Sigma, originally developed by Motorola, is an integrated, disciplined proven approach for improving business performance.
The Global Six Sigma Awards will be provided in six categories - one being health care. The winners will be announced in Las Vegas on Oct. 24.
“Using Six Sigma methodologies, we have been able to continually improve our clinical performance at the beside, thereby assuring our patients that they are receiving the finest care in the safest environment,” said Myron Berdischewsky, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Providence Health & Services – California Region. “Being named as one of the three finalists for Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Healthcare is a great honor that reflects the excellent work accomplished by all the dedicated front line staff and managers at our four hospitals in Southern California.”
Providence Health & Services - California Region consists of four acute care hospitals as well as several skilled nursing and outpatient facilities throughout Los Angeles County. The four acute care hospitals are 556-bed Little Company of Mary San Pedro Hospital, 448-bed Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, 434-bed Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance and 255-bed Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.
Like other companies, Providence Health & Services has used Six Sigma methodologies to eliminate defects and thereby increase efficiency and reduce waste, which it has done successfully in such projects as revenue cycle improvement and reducing the time for patients to receive a computer tomography (CT) scan after an order is placed. However, much of Providence’s focus has been in using Six Sigma to improve clinical performances at the patient bedside.
Using Six Sigma methodologies, the Providence California Region has worked to improve the care it provides to surgery patients by assuring that antibiotics are discontinued at the appropriate time, to pneumonia patients by assuring they receive antibiotics quickly, to congestive heart failure patients by assuring they receive adequate discharge instructions, as well as to emergency department patients and to patients susceptible to falls. - (KHTS, 22 Sep 07)

Managemet program: Delta Dental is satisfied with scorecard results

Five years ago, executives of Delta Dental of Kansas Inc. set out to implement a new management program. The purpose of the program, called the balanced scorecard, was to help the company carry out its growth strategy. The difference was that it wasn't a program that affected just the senior and middle management of the Wichita-based dental insurance company. It required the participation of all of the company's nearly 100 employees. "It truly does increase accountability and transparency," said Linda Brantner, Delta Dental president and chief executive. Getting employees to buy in to the balanced scorecard system probably was the biggest hurdle Delta Dental officials had to overcome in its implementation. But Brantner, like executives at other companies that have implemented the balanced scorecard, said the payoff has been significant. Measurable results: In its 2006 annual report, Delta Dental said its business and operations improved in several ways, all because of the balanced scorecard. Company revenue increased 176 percent to $174 million in 2006. Delta Dental's market share more than doubled. And its expense ratio dropped nearly 3 percent in five years. "It made it possible for us to clearly define our strategy and communicate it," Brantner said. "It helps you align your initiatives and resources to your strategy." The balanced scorecard was created by Harvard Business School professor Robert Kaplan and business consultant David Norton as a way to communicate and implement strategy throughout an organization -- all the while measuring a company's progress toward meeting its strategic goals. It's a system that was also implemented at UMB Bank in 2005, said Craig Anderson, chairman and chief executive of UMB's Kansas region. "It's been a great tool for us and is one of the primary drivers of our earnings growth, our loan growth over the last three years," Anderson said. "We had different measurement systems, but we did not have that type of strategic focus month by month." Key to its implementation is the participation of all of an organization's employees. All Delta Dental employees' compensation is tied to their scorecard performance, which they review quarterly with managers. "It's truly not something you do once a year and put away," Brantner said. "What we try to do is align everybody's goals... with the corporate strategy." Delta Dental rolled out the balanced scorecard to rank-and-file employees a year after it was launched at the corporate and departmental levels. Brantner said it took a while for all of the company's employees to understand it and accept it. The company held training sessions and all-employee meetings on the scorecard, and stories on it were published in the company newsletter. UMB's Anderson compared the scorecard to the report cards "like we all had in high school and college." At UMB, an example of a balanced scorecard goal would be increasing total loan or deposit growth by a certain percentage annually. "It gives you a specific set of goals to manage to," Anderson said. "We look at those metrics month by month to see how we're faring against that target goal." Brantner says one scorecard area where the company saw great improvement was the time for its customer service representatives to answer phone calls. Previously, it took 12 seconds for a call to be answered by a representative. That's since been halved to six seconds. For that group of employees, that was a target set for both a departmental and individual scorecard measure. 'Valid concept': A local management expert compared the balanced scorecard system to other earlier management improvement systems, such as Total Quality Management and Six Sigma. "Putting a metric on whatever you're trying to achieve, I think that's a valid concept," said Gerald Graham, R.P. Clinton distinguished professor of management at Wichita State University. "But good companies were doing that before they heard of balanced scorecard." One particular strength of the balanced scorecard is that every person within an organization is measured on something that is tied to the company's larger strategy. In that scenario, the company's strategic goals are made clearer to everyone within the organization. "To me, the value of it is if an organization is sort of adapting this template to planning... it kind of gets everybody on the same page," he said. Graham predicted that the balanced scorecard, like other management systems, "will be around for a while until some other professor" comes up with a different management concept. But at Delta Dental, management and employees "kind of live" the balanced scorecard system, Brantner said. And Delta Dental has done a good enough job executing it that the company last year was inducted into the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame, which put it in the company of corporate giants such as Best Buy, Motorola, UPS and Sprint. Brantner said Delta Dental's leadership team also attends an annual balanced scorecard seminar and takes the information back to apply it at the company. Brantner said she doesn't see the company abandoning the balanced scorecard system. "Now it's part of our culture," Brantner said. "I don't think we'd ever go back." - (TWE, 2 Sep 07)