Healing the System: rejuvenating the heart in healthcare
About The Book
As a healthcare provider, do you feel frustrated and fatigued with an impersonal, administrative-heavy system where you don’t feel your opinion matters? Do you feel powerless to effect change? You’re not alone! Provider burnout is rampant due to bureaucratic overload, long work hours, and the lack of community, respect, and autonomy at work. But these issues can be addressed without significant expense or a major system overhaul. Dr. John McB. Hodgson’s approach to healthcare change re-empowers healthcare providers to do what they love to do—care for patients, solve problems, and influence the delivery system.
In Healing the System, Dr. Hodgson draws on his experience as a seasoned cardiologist to suggest easy-to-implement changes that healthcare providers and administrators can make to combat the increasingly dysfunctional environment typical of current practice. These simple changes can bring a sense of fulfillment, joy, and satisfaction back to the practice of medicine, and the entire system will be energized. Hodgson’s solutions include
• getting back to missional purpose, rather than focusing solely on the numbers;
• empowering teams and community;
• encouraging equity in the place where providers practice;
• involving providers in administrative functions and decision making; and
• honoring one another, no matter the position or the department.
The message in this book encourages physicians and other healthcare delivery professionals to create an environment and culture in which everyone can thrive.
About The Author
John McB. Hodgson, MD, MSCAI
John McB. Hodgson received his M.D. from the Dartmouth Medical School in 1978. He completed his cardiology fellowship training at the University of Michigan, and additional Interventional training at Brown University. In 1989, he moved to the Case Western Reserve Medical System in Cleveland, Ohio. He was subsequently awarded as a tenured Full Professor of Medicine and served in three hospitals in the Case system. He worked on sabbatical in Germany at the HertzCentrm Bad Krozengen. He subsequently was Professor and Chief of Academic Cardiology at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix after which he developed Santé Personalized Preventive Healthcare to address the needs of patients with advanced atherosclerosis.
From 2009 to 2012 served as Chairman of the Cardiology Department at Geisinger Health System in north-central Pennsylvania, and then returned to Case Western as Director of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. He has subsequently assisted CardioSolution in developing heart attack programs in smaller community hospitals.
Dr. Hodgson is a Diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the Subspecialty Board in Cardiovascular Disease, and has added qualification in Interventional Cardiology. He is Past President of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. He was awarded “Master” status with SCAI in 2016.
He has authored or co-authored over 200 articles, book chapters and interactive teaching tools. Dr. Hodgson has several patents and has also produced award-winning web-based image interpretation tools for health care professionals. He is a certified Life Coach and is the founder of Hodgson Leadership Solutions, a healthcare consulting firm.
Quotes from... Healing the System: rejuvenating the heart in healthcare
“Rather than being practitioners of the mission to serve the poor and ill, we have become the mechanism to ensure sufficient income and financial viability.”
“We do not have to practice in an environment that feels increasingly hostile, isolated, and uncomfortable. Those days can be behind us.”
“The way we construct teams can lead to success or failure. A team will fail if it distributes responsibility so that no one is really in charge.”
“Patients want to feel known. Continuity achieves this and when you know how a patient is doing, confirms that your practice of medicine makes a difference.”
“While there are new regulatory, oversight, and financial complexities, they do not justify the near-total exclusion of providers from the administrative function of the system.”
“Practicing medicine is an art requiring flexibility, creativity, and resilience. … Building in some administrative activity is a way to recognize the wisdom and knowledge of providers.”
Rave Reviews for... The "Unhealed" Believer: What to Do When You've Done It All
“Well worth the time to read and carefully consider the reality of the problems we face in healthcare. It contains some extremely practical and, indeed, pragmatic approaches to resolving or lessening the dysfunction.”
- Lorick Fox, MPAS, PA-C, AACC