Looking at How Other Hospital Unions Are Making Work Better

One main focus of the upcoming contract negotiations for SHARE will be improving the day-to-day experience for SHARE members. To prepare, SHARE is looking at what other hospitals and unions are doing.

The annual IHI (Institute for Healthcare Improvement) conference is a great place to meet people doing innovative work. IHI is a world leader in the effort to improve healthcare, and to make good care available to everyone. The conference brings together healthcare leaders, front-line employees, nurses, doctors, medical students, administrators, and a few of us from organized labor. It was inspiring to be with over five thousand people from all over the world who are trying to make their hospitals better.

Highlights from other unions:

• UNITE HERE, a union that represents hotel workers in Los Angeles, is running classes for their members (voluntary, of course) in self-management of chronic disease. Many members are feeling healthier, and they are keeping the costs of their health insurance down. (For more info, see link to video, link to report with health outcomes data.)
• CIR (the Committee of Interns and Residents, a union of doctors), teaches process improvement to new doctors, who are motivated to gain those skills and experiences to use in their careers. You can read about them here, here and here.
• I got to learn a lot more about the Labor Management Partnership at Kaiser Permanente. The best part was meeting the union & manager co-leaders of unit-based teams in their departments. Kaiser rewards the 30 best unit-based teams every year by sending the co-lead to the IHI conference.
•  I went to a workshop from Kaiser called "Workers and Patients: A Single Culture of Safety" where they said that the best prevention for injuries is to have a good team, where workers feel free to speak up when they see something that could be improved.

The Labor Management Partnership at Kaiser Permanente is really changing the role of frontline staff at their hospitals, and we want to learn a lot more about how they are doing it. This week, we are hosting a series of meetings with a union and a management leader from Kaiser Permanente -- more on that soon.

Pictured: Maggie Ridings, LPN (right) and Jane Baxter, Nurse Manager. Maggie and Jane are co-leads of a unit-based team in the OB/Gyn department and clinic in Alpharetta, Georgia. One of their team's projects was to develop a system to help their patients be sure to pick the right hospital for their delivery, saving their patients money and helping Kaiser Permanente to keep their healthcare affordable. In another project, they built a garden to encourage healthy living for patients and staff.