Creating Unit-Based Leadership Teams to Drive Empowerment and Engagement

August, 2014

In late July, 60 members of the Experience Innovation Network (EIN) met at University of Chicago Medicine’s Center for Care and Discovery to share best practices and define that tools and materials that support unit-based leadership approaches.

Unit-based leadership models are emerging as an effective approach to driving alignment across often siloed improvement initiatives (process, quality/safety, and experience improvement).  Equally important, unit-based leadership models harness the skills and influence of physicians as improvement partners, engaging them in supporting improvement initiatives that have traditionally fallen largely to nursing and aligning efforts across nursing, physicians, and operational teams.  Also called dyad or triad leadership approaches, unit-based leadership drives ownership and accountability across all levels of the organization.  As a result, physicians, staff, and leaders alike are more engaged in supporting continuous improvement.

But building an inclusive governance model that aligns strategy and creates consistency from the top down while capturing the voice of frontline staff and supporting innovation from the bottom up is challenging.  xLab attendees created three core toolkits that support rapid and effective implementation of unit-based leadership models:

1. A Unit-based Leadership Compact to align goals and create ground rules for effective collaboration.
2. An ongoing Operating Rhythm that supports strategic alignment, communication, and shared learning across multiple organizational levels.
3. A Leadership Training Curriculum to help new and existing leaders acquire the skills and competencies that allow them to support continuous improvement.

xLab attendees and other members of the EIN will continue to support each other to accelerate the adoption of this physician and staff engagement approach, and to share solutions, best practices, and data that show the value of the model.