THE DEADLY SINS OF COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS - PART 7. REPEATING THE SAME MISTAKES AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS

The Deadly Sins of Community Health Centers - Part 7. Repeating the Same Mistakes and Expecting Different Results

Continuing our postings on the Deadly Sins of Community Health Centers (CHCs); yesterday we discussed Part 6 – Hamster Wheel as Strategy. Today, we’ll look at the seventh sin: Repeating the Same Mistakes and Expecting Different Results.

Community Health Centers’ repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results may be either a new sin, or caused by the prior six:
Part 1 – The Lack of Urgency
Part 2 - Tendency to Chase the Latest Trend
Part 3 - Inability to Embrace Proven Management Techniques
Part 4 - Meaningless Networks
Part 5 - Resistance to Change and Denial
Part 6 - Hamster Wheel as Strategy

7. Repeating the Same Mistake and Expecting Different Results
Questions:
1. Why do Community Health Center (CHC) Boards, Executive Directors, and Senior Staff keep doing the same things, looking at the same reports, writing the same marketing plans?
2. Why don’t more CHCs succeed at serving more of the underserved?
3. Has access really been expanded over the past 35 years of CHCs existence?
4. Has it been expanded as much as is needed? Why not?
5. What are the mature leadership steps and CHC Boards and Executive Directors can take to expand that access?

The “I Love Lucy” show provides a good example of the mistakes that that many CHCs make:

One day Ricky comes home, and finds Lucy crawling around on the living room floor. When he asks what she’s doing, Lucy explains that she lost her earrings. “You lost your earrings in the living room?” asks Ricky. To which Lucy replies, “No, I lost them in the bedroom – but the light is so much better out here.”

Humorous? - Maybe… Sad? - Definitely…

Does Lucy’s behavior seem familiar?
How often have you seen it played-out at your community health center?

For many Boards, Executive Directors, and senior managers at Community Health Centers, the light is best in familiar places - repetitious reports, unfulfilled marketing plans, and unproductive meetings. They find a safe-harbor in those activities; unfortunately, there remains no improvement, no growth, and no enhanced patient care.

Boards and CHC managers distract themselves by becoming overly involved in the trivia and minutiae, often creating a complexity where none exists. They put the success of their CHC at risk, because they refuse to face, and overcome, these deadly sins:

1 – The Lack of Urgency
2 - Tendency to Chase the Latest Trend
3 - Inability to Embrace Proven Management Techniques
4 - Meaningless Networks
5 - Resistance to Change and Denial
6 - Hamster Wheel as Strategy
7 - Repeating the Same Mistake and Expecting Different Results

Recognizing and then overcoming these “sins” will contribute greatly toward fulfilling community health centers’ mission of serving the underserved.

Next Post: We will examine The Tragic, Yet Avoidable Mistake Made by Community Health Center Boards - An Introduction.