Question

You are the executive director of a nonprofit that runs an animal shelter and animal services, such as low-cost spay/neuter programs. Your biggest donor, a local foundation, has just withdrawn funding, saying that it has refocused its mission on supporting arts programs and your activities do not align with that. Unless other funding can be found, and soon, the shelter building will need to be closed, paid staff laid off, and most animals turned over to other, already crowded shelters. Your employees and volunteers are very worried and are looking to you for leadership.
Which of the following do you do? Check all that apply.

A. Withhold information about the organization’s financial picture so that employees continue to be loyal rather than looking for other jobs.

B. Hold meetings with employees, volunteers, and representatives of other local shelters and listen carefully as they brainstorm ideas.

C. Honestly acknowledge the challenges the organization faces while also communicating optimism about finding the resources to fulfill your mission.

D. Stay in your office as much as possible so people know you’re hard at work, and when you do walk around, keep a "poker face" on so no one gets the idea that things are worse or better than they are.

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>> [Background Music] Good communication will enable lower costs, better patient care, and better patient outcomes. And technology can facilitate that. Hi. I'm Mark Allen. I'm the Clinical Information Systems Manager for the Utah South region and the rural region for Intermountain Healthcare. Intermountain is known internationally for its ability to be able to use clinical data to improve patient outcomes. So, we have 22 hospitals across the state of Utah, one in Idaho, and we have over 300 clinics across the enterprise.

>> Communication is very important. And one of the key things to keeping everybody on the same page is to develop a good communication plan and to repeat a consistent message often and frequently. Hi, I'm Fritz Crone [phonetic]. I'm the Regional Director for Quality at Intermountain Healthcare in the urban south region here. And one of the most exciting things I get to do every day is to work with our teams and accelerate bringing best practices to our patients. Every region supplies a local representative. We are very fortunate in our ability to engage physicians and nurse leaders who are willing to spend their time participating in the committee meetings and networking with their peers throughout the system. And we always recognize that it is a challenge to get the word out. And we do that through meetings. We do that through talking points. We'll put flyers on bulletin boards. There's also some more formal documents called care process guidelines. And those are heavily researched documents that are available on the website. So, we use a combination of methods to communicate what are goals are for that year. Part of our clinical program goals almost always involves patient education because in addition to the providers, the physicians, and the nurses and the laboratory support, as patients, we are also very accountable for our health outcomes. We have standardized education. And we, that allows us to deliver a consistent message. So, when you're discharged from one facility, we have a standardized brochure and teaching information that's given. And then, again, that information is available throughout the system.

>> Telehealth services is really a key that we've identified and invested in in Intermountain healthcare. We have currently 26 projects across the enterprise where we're trying to find technical solutions to be able to provide better care to the patients. We have Tele-critical care. We have Tele-psych. We have a variety of other telehealth initiatives that we're trying to initiate to provide care at the rural facilities that can't afford, you know, a neonatologist or a hospitalist. In addition, the information that we have within our system is also provided to our home health division. So, as our home health nurses are visiting patients at home, they're going to have the full history and physical of the patient and the care that they received in the hospital to be able to provide better patient care to the patients that they visit.

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According to the managers in the video, which of the following methods is Intermountain Healthcare using to promote strategic conversations in the organization? Check all that apply.

Using purpose-directed communication

Engaging in downward communication

Using multiple channels of communication

Communicating across organizational boundaries

Answer 1

A. Hold meetings with employees, volunteers, and representatives of other local shelters and listen carefully as they brainstorm ideas.

C. Honestly acknowledge the challenges the organization faces while also communicating optimism about finding the resources to fulfill your mission.