Empath Health, a non-profit healthcare organization based out of Florida, began developing their new intranet in early 2020. While the pandemic introduced some unique challenges to their intranet project, they persevered and successfully launched their new intranet, The Loop, in July. Here's what project lead @Jeannine Lyons had to say about the challenges they encountered and how they overcame them to launch The Loop:
Launching a healthcare organization’s intranet during a pandemic can be done.
Our intranet goals are to build affinity, autonomy, and affiliation, also known as the three A’s of employee engagement. We had big plans for design and launch that had to change fast, as we are a healthcare organization providing services to over 4,000 people a day. While we had originally planned on cool stuff, like demo kiosks and genius bar hours and prizes and all sorts of fun exploratory ways for employees to engage in designing and learning about their new intranet (aka The Loop), we had to rethink everything. Not only were we responding from an emergency operations standpoint as a healthcare agency, but we were also mindful of the physical and emotional stress our employees were suddenly under, personally and professionally.
We wanted the intranet to be a place of productivity and connection and were highly committed to co-designing it with employees to make that happen.
Due to the pandemic, we had to find a delicate balance between engaging them so they knew it was designed by employees for employees as committed, but also not overwhelming them. We knew that if we could find a way to launch somewhat on schedule, despite the pandemic and with our emergency operations response happening concurrently, we could bring a lot of joy to people who were working very hard to take care of others. We also knew the platform would provide us with tools for meeting mission-critical needs for internal communications, suddenly made all the more critical because of the pandemic.
So what did we do instead of our grand design and launch plans?
We improvised, adapted, and overcame. We set up multiple 30-minute Zoom meetings with page authors and owners. We worked to make them comfortable with all of the changes that would be coming their way from our old intranet versus the new. We built excitement through sneak previews, making it special to be invited to look at the new employee directory and org chart and comment on it, to help us with our findability and tagging, and other tasks that would take 15 minutes or less on their own. By inviting over 50 people to take part in content migration and creation, we were able to create a group of authors who felt very invested in our final product and served as ambassadors for launch.
Because we are supporting healthcare teams in the time of a pandemic, we could not allow there to be any delay in people finding what they needed to do their jobs.
Our intranet links out to essential pharmacy resources, medical equipment, and other immediate, must-have items. To make sure no one would get lost in the new format, we did multiple short preview videos and demo sessions of the new homepage and highlighted where mission-critical tools were located.
On launch day, we hosted open Zoom sessions from evening until night and also added check-ins on the weekends to ensure that everyone could find what they needed to do their job in the moment they needed to do it. All the while, we continue to check the Search terms people were using through our analytics to ensure that we were tagging pages properly and that no one ended up with a dead end. We're happy to say that this modified approach worked very well and we've got more engagement than ever on our new intranet. We used this launch as a way to show people they were cared for, that we see them and appreciate them, and that we are here to support them and also make them smile. In that way, we became part of the Emergency Response Team, by helping those who take care of others find what they needed fast, and to feel cared for themselves.
And now, we are about to merge with a partner healthcare organization so we can expand our services even further.
We are also about to pursue top-level accreditation activities and important initiatives to expand our non-profit services, while getting ready for hurricane season with yet another layer of emergency ops planning! Having the new intranet platform in place enables all of those things to be concurrently shared with employees in ways that do not overwhelm but rather inform and engage, thanks to all of the available communications tools and design cards.
We are grateful for our fellow employees' partnership during very challenging times and for cheering us on through all of the work that goes into creating, maintaining and continually improving this new platform. Is launching an intranet during a pandemic hard? Yes. But it can be done, and it will be worth it. It might even turn out better than it would have had there not been such urgency behind our design choices to ensure mission-critical content was front and center, as well as a mission to make each employee’s day better.
Hello Everyone,
We’ve got a busy summer ahead and here’s some great news: there is a new, improved Loop platform coming to support you by the end of July!
Many people across the organization gave generously of their time and insight into how the new platform should work.
The new Loop was created with user-requested features first.
To date, we have completed:
Redesign of homepage top-bar navigation – created fewer clicks, faster access to Tools, and a Bookmarks feature so your homepage can be customized with your most-visited pages
Redesign of program and team pages with greater functioning for document sharing, two-way communications, and workgroup project management
User experience design (I am a__ and I want to__ because__)
Integrating Active Directory and creating security groups and roles testing for mobile access
Working with page owners and authors on creating new team pages and groups
Testing of functionality with page authors and group leaders, including content findability and task testing with employees across programs
Our next steps for getting ready for a late July launch include:
Loop orientation sessions with senior leaders available by request
Offering two All Supervisor sessions focused solely on Tools as well as Program & Team pages
Employee previews have been conducted over the last few months across all programs, and here’s what else is coming soon:
Sneak peeks of Loop 2.0 made available on the current Loop’s homepage
Loop posts highlighting most asked-for features and most-needed clicks, including Tools and a new Directory and Organizational Chart
A “Where’s My Stuff?” infomercial orienting employees to any changed locations of top features and most-accessed tools:
a. Content alerts
b. Personalized homepage features
c. Announcements and appreciation features
d. New “groups” and team page enhancements
e. Employee directory, organizational chart, and user profile updates
f. Enhanced search functions
g. Mobile-friendly navigation, look, and feel: ex: “My Desk” is now organized by function and simply called “Tools”)
Launch support will include:
An internal Loop “press release” announcing the launch date to All Employees, anticipated for July 20
Open Zoom sessions across multiple days hosted by the ODL team as “office hours” for in-the-moment staff support during week of July 20
We look forward to bringing you this new employee communications platform and are available for more orientation and page authoring sessions by request!
As Tao states, in order to unleash the full potential in others, you first have to unleash your own potential to the fullest. Transformational physician leaders model authenticity by knowing themselves first.
The Challenge
Do you see yourself as a leader and accept the professional mandate to lead?
Are you managing your energy and wellness to prevent burnout?
Now ask if you see the following symptoms within yourself and among physicians in your organization:
Misaligned goals between hospitals and physicians
Anxiety about the future of healthcare
Providers unaware of the financial implications of their actions on the system
Confusion about the strategic direction of the organization
Resistance to change and preserve the status quo
Limited adoption of evidence based practices
Lack of physician engagement in clinical transformation efforts, including patient experience
Physicians limiting their involvement to clinical work
The Solution
Before you can lead others, it is essential to know and lead oneself.
Transformational Physician Leaders become most effective and authentic by learning to truly see and know themselves first, before they can truly see and lead others. These leaders demonstrate integrity, self-awareness, and optimism, and lead by example.
As Peter Drucker states: We must be our own CEO. To do that successfully, we have to know our strengths and weaknesses, our work style, how well we work with others, what our personal values are, and in what areas we can contribute the most.
Leading the Self means a transformation from Professional to Leader.
A major aspect of emotional intelligence is self-regulation, or the ability to break destructive habits and regulate disruptive emotions that govern adaptability.
"Emotionally intelligent individuals are self-aware, regulate their own behavior, show empathy, motivation and have very good social skills. These have been shown as hallmarks of good leadership. At the other end of the spectrum are those who play victim and the blame game, show disinterest, do the minimum and are happy with the status quo, resentful of success, inflexible and reactive.
In many conflict style assessments, physicians tend to fall into one of two styles: they either avoid or confront conflict. Physicians in their medical training and credentialing are given no exposure to conflict resolution, which results in either avoidance behavior or a confrontational style that stymies team building and organizational alignment. Highly effective leaders are extremely self-aware, self-disciplined and show the empathy to deal with conflicts effectively." ~Peter Drucker
Physicians who Lead the Self First…
Pursue purpose with a passion
Model the way by clarifying personal values and aligning their actions with their values
Lead with their hearts as well as their heads
Then They Are Capable to Lead People and…
Seek to understand the needs and concerns of others
Embrace and inspire a shared vision with exciting possibilities for all involved
Establish enduring relationships
Build trust, garner support, establish collaborative goals and share power
How can these essential attributes of physician leaders be developed?
PLI provides comprehensive leadership development programs helping physician and leaders lead with purpose, lead self, lead with strategy, lead people and deliver results. Our programs are customized to meet the distinct mission and vision, varying budgets, time constraints, a unique culture, and differing desired outcomes. PLI offers a continuum of custom programs in various formats that deliver the maximum return on investment for the organization as a whole and the individuals participating in our programs. PLI immerses physicians in 4 key areas: seeing self-first as leaders, inspiring their teams, leading change strategies and delivering transformative outcomes. As one graduate of PLI noted:
"The Physician Leadership Institute has taught me that doctors can work together in a collegial manner to help shape healthcare reform, rather than just waiting to react to the change and hope to survive. " ~ PLI Graduate
Are you ready to begin your transformation from Professional to Leader by Leading Yourself First? Join Us!
References:
PHYSICIAN LEADERSHIP: The Rx for Healthcare Transformation Mo Kasti, 2015
Managing Oneself, Peter Drucker, Best of HBR, 1999.
Burned Out, Ulrich Kraft, Scientific American Mind, June/July 2006 p. 28-33
We are living and working together in a time of unprecedented challenges.
Empath Health employees are showing themselves each day to be deeply committed to providing life-changing care to those we serve and to each other, come what may. We have risen to overcome challenges in so many ways with our brave spirits. We have much to be proud of!
We are all in this together and we have already created or found for one another:
Groceries and surplus food pantry distributions
Child care
Pet medications
Toilet paper
Deliveries of comfort food to care centers
Hand sanitizer (some that even smells delightful)
A virtual mindfulness meditation space
Virtual family visits with patients using iPads in care centers
Telehealth visits and tech suppor
Volunteers to create a beautiful area of comfort masks:
Team supports using video calls and the most innovative use of a "drive-in" (with goodie bags !) ever
Virtual onboarding and new employee orientation
Virtual clinical education
And so many more excellent moments of teamwork! There is more to come so be sure to check the Loop for the latest Empath Together moments.
What moments have mattered to you the most? Let's celebrate them and uplift each other.
Send your selfies, videos, memes, and inspirational signs to jeanninelyons(at)empathhealth.org, or add your Empath Together stories in the comments below so we can follow up with you!
My Fellow Employees,
June is Pride month and for the first time in our organization’s history, the Pride flags are being raised for the month of June at our service centers as a part of a larger effort to make it clear: All Are Welcome Here.
Here are some fast facts about the rainbow flag, a.k.a. the Pride flag, you may want to share with your teams:
The flag’s colors represent togetherness, including all races, ages and genders. It was created by Gilbert Baker, an Army veteran.
It is about far more than a month. Raising it at our service centers represents our cultural competence and commitment to diversity and inclusion.
June was chosen as the month to celebrate gay pride because of the Stonewall riots. FYI, this is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.
It is a statement we are proud to make as providers of life-changing care for all, including those who have been historically marginalized and underserved.
As fellow leaders, we value all points of view that adhere to a fundamental basis of respect and tolerance. However, our stated values do preclude anyone's personal or political preferences in this organization. We are each called upon to have open minds, brave spirits, healing presence, pioneering hearts, and grateful voices. Those values have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with a belief that equitable access and dignity in care is a human right.
We will continue to value all points of view that adhere to a fundamental basis of respect and tolerance, as well as a commitment to increasing access to care and health equity. Suggestions for additional ways to show our expertise as skilled providers of inclusive care will be part of an ongoing conversation.
Also, we warmly welcome all employees to join the St. Pete Pride parade in support of Empath Health and our surrounding communities on June 22nd. It is an excellent opportunity to show who we are and what we stand for: life-changing care for all.