Challenging the Status Quo to Improve Patient-Centered Care

Emma P. Monaco transitioned into the healthcare industry after a period of personal reflection, seeking purpose in her professional life. With a background in the entertainment sector, she found that line of work lacked the meaning she was looking for. Influenced by her childhood shaped by resilience and a personal commitment to caring for her aging parents, Monaco discovered a strong sense of purpose in healthcare. Her early experiences in the field reinforced her dedication to improving access to quality care, an effort she continues through her leadership in post-acute strategy and business development at Prime Healthcare.

Through This Article, Monaco Emphasizes On The Practical Insights On Leading Healthcare Teams With Authenticity And Clarity, Strategies For Improving Collaboration Between Acute And Post-Acute Care Settings With Purpose-Driven Decision-Making.

Leading With Trust, Communication, and Clarity

Building trusting relationships with your team is extremely important. Engaging your team thru transparency, building trusting workday to day experience and open effective communication is crucial for the success of the team and organization. It starts from recruiting and hiring. Finding the right people, right work ethic. Your team must know your (company’s) “why’s, when, who’s, where and what.” Setting clear and attainable expectations from the beginning is very important to be communicated to your team, ongoing basis. Communication, consistency and collaboration in a team is a must. It starts from the leader. Being a leader of a team is a huge responsibility. Customizing leadership approach; mentorship and coaching based on your employee’s skillset I find effective in leading teams as not everyone is the same.

A Unified Care Approach for Elevating Postacute Engagement

Insurance reimbursements to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), unhoused indigent patients, some unhoused with history of drug use with multiple comorbidities and lack of engagement and understanding from assisted living facilities (ALFs) regarding continuum of care and acute world are the top 3 challenges we have in the healthcare ecosystem.

Reason I created a SNF (post-acute) collaborative which we meet quarterly at my hospital. We (myself and my fellow C-suite hospital leaders) meet with the post-acutes stakeholders quarterly discussing different topics and real time challenges. We discuss how we can resolve and improve together from actual patient incidents or other challenges we encountered in the past month or quarter.

“I find that by educating my post-acute peers about our hospital challenges through explaining our hospital “why’s,” I have created an open communication pathway on both sides building a more trusting, collaborative approach in solving patient issues or other organizational issues pertaining to patients, physicians and other healthcare providers”

I put it upon myself to create the quarterly collaborative with post-acutes with my intent to bridge the gap between my hospitals and post-acutes. I find that by educating my postacute peers about our hospital challenges through explaining our hospital “why’s,” I have created an open communication pathway on both sides building a more trusting, collaborative approach in solving patient issues or other organizational issues pertaining to patients, physicians and other healthcare providers. I created an environment built with trust and transparency by implementing a “circle of trust” approach through different customized continuum of care strategies. Coming from post-acute world, I’ve always felt, most hospitals did not have the time nor patience to engage nor explain to me their “why’s.” Now that I am on the acute side, again, I put it upon myself to ensure my two hospitals – Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center and Huntington Beach Hospitals make SNFs and other post-acutes feel they are part of the healthcare ecosystem. I see them as an extension to the acute world. Reason hospitals are called “acute,” patient need to have an acute medical emergency or episode to stay or be at the hospital and “post-acute” to me means the patient is now medically stable and now needs to transition to an appropriate level of care.

I have placed my passion and drive to improve quality care for patients in my current role as the Director of PostAcute Strategy, Business Development & Operations at Prime Healthcare – Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center and Huntington Beach Hospitals. Most post-acute operators, leaders were my previous colleagues, boss and co-workers. I am grateful for my decades of post-acute journey because it gave me an opportunity to build personal and professional strong and long-term relationships with the post-acute world. I feel there is a “built-in trust” that already exists because the post-acute leaders know I came from their side. Most importantly, consistency on my end ensuring my fellow hospital leaders is also held accountable. Accountability on both sides of our healthcare ecosystem is very important removing the “blame game” that only leads to distrust. Collaboration, communication, transparency and accountability are important business principles I have learned in my career.

Because of my decades of post-acute business development experience, my fellow hospital C-Suite leaders, coworkers and physicians sees my wealth of knowledge of the post-acute world as an asset to our hospital’s success. “Connecting the dots” (is how I call it) and navigating the complexity of the healthcare ecosystem - acute hospitals to the post-acutes can be extremely complicated.

Ask Why and Trust Your Gut

Know and find out the answers to your “Why’s.” Being true to yourself, creating a reputation built in trust, transparency, effective-open communication, collaboration, consistency, strategy, tenacity and grit are extremely important in the healthcare industry, in any careers. Do not be afraid to challenge the “status quo” especially if you are coming from a place of good, with an intent to provide and improve the quality of care for the patients and community we serve. If no one is against your mission or vision, that means, your dream or goal is NOT big or purposeful enough. Learn to accept the word “NO,” as “not yet,” or “not now,” maybe tomorrow. Keep going. Trust your GUT.