Five Lessons from Year One of the West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham
Image provided by Huron Consulting Group
At a time when the U.S. healthcare system is facing unprecedented challenges, the West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham is redefining what’s possible. The goal is to improve outcomes, reduce complications and make it easier for clinicians to deliver high-quality inpatient care to older adults in a safe, consistent and coordinated fashion. This is just one example of new collaborations between the West Health Institute, a nonprofit focused on healthcare and aging, and leading healthcare systems to transform patient care and build scalable solutions for hospitals nationwide.
The work of the West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham took center stage in Boston on August 13, at Huron Consulting’s annual What’s Right in Healthcare event, a gathering of healthcare leaders and changemakers focused on the future of care delivery, AI and business transformation.
Zara Cooper, MD, MSc, MGB, FACS, co-director of the West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham, joined Timothy A. Lash, president of West Health, for a panel session entitled “Winning with Operational Innovation: Scalable Solutions from West Health Accelerator Partners.”
Lash explained that for over a decade West Health has been focused on healthcare delivery, affordability and aging through a combined lens of research, policy and philanthropy. “As we looked at the market … we saw some real opportunities to leverage technology and redesign programs, care pathways and operations to have an even bigger impact on patients.”
Here are five key takeaways from the session:
Partner for Impact
Cooper noted the partnership with West Health Institute is critical to the initiative’s success. “We need partners willing to think outside the box, push us hard, and resource us in such a way that we can focus on the things we think are important, so that we can empower and inspire the people that we work with,” she explained. “The West Health Institute is a visionary organization that wants to do the right thing for all the right reasons and is willing to take chances. Our entire team views partnering and learning from them as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a tremendous impact. We take great pride in helping provide a blueprint that others can follow if they are inspired to implement it within their own health systems.”
Hardwire Innovation
Cooper and Lash emphasized that lasting improvement requires embedding new practices directly into systems and workflows. Cooper shared how the Mass General Brigham merger has provided a platform to hardwire innovation.
“We have an opportunity to break down barriers, to break down silos and to recognize that we can do things in a more systematic, standardized way,” she said. “We are leveraging the push that we're getting from our leaders to become a high-reliability organization, to hold ourselves accountable for the type and quality of care that we deliver and how we measure it. We have hitched our star to that wagon, and it's enabled us to do a lot of great work quite quickly.” For example, the West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham will integrate and automate proven age-specific care pathways and age-based rules directly into EPIC. This will ensure clinicians deliver a consistent, high-quality standard of care for older adults across the Mass General Brigham system.
Empower Champions
Cooper also stressed the importance of identifying, educating and supporting on-the-ground frontline champions. “At Mass General Brigham, we’ve identified more than 50 West Health Champions and site leads who share our passion for this type of work and who want to amplify the work we’re doing,” she said. “We are educating them not only in geriatric care, but also in leadership, change management and quality improvement. They will be the ambassadors and communicators who will lead and inspire throughout Mass General Brigham.”
Cooper added that continuing to equip Mass General Brigham clinicians with the skills, vision and leadership to pioneer better care for older adults will be important as the work evolves and expands over the next several years.
Remember the “Why”
When asked how the Accelerator team has presented their work to leadership and frontline staff, Cooper shared that it’s been important to tap into why they work in healthcare. “No matter how complicated the health system becomes, the reason I go to work every day is because of my relationship with my patients. And I believe that anybody who is affiliated with healthcare values those relationships. So, we have had a lot of success in getting buy-in from our leaders and our frontline staff because everybody is here for the same reason — to do their best work for our patients. Getting back to the “why” has been critically important and very inspiring for our team, and it’s also been empowering for the people who are working with us."
Meet People Where They Are
Cooper also shared a critical factor in moving the work forward has been involving clinicians throughout the process to understand their needs, pain points and circumstances — and adopting support and strategies accordingly.
“A major lesson has been to include people from the beginning and meet them where they are.”
Cooper emphasized that staff are burdened and overwhelmed themselves, so it’s important to make it easier for them and support them to do the right things. The West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham team has been doing just that. “We've been asking a lot of questions and using human-centered design to understand what is most important, not only to the C-suite but also to the frontline clinicians who are doing the work and are going to execute the strategy for the whole healthcare system,” says Cooper. “A major lesson has been to include people from the beginning and meet them where they are, whether that's from a communication standpoint or a technology standpoint. Taking the time to ask questions, empower, give agency, give voice and circle back has been very helpful in getting support for this work.”
Feeling Confident About the Future
Having this foundational year in the rearview mirror, Cooper is excited about all that the West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham has accomplished and feels confident as the Mass General Brigham systemwide launch approaches later this year. “In our first year, we built this incredible team and put everything in place, and now we are about to deploy, which is very exciting,” she said. “Although we are going to get lumps and bumps, we will be prepared for them. We are not afraid to learn from them and we are going to have the difficult conversations,” Cooper said. “I'm excited to be on this journey to continue learning in the best interest of our patients.”
The West Health Accelerator at Mass General Brigham will continue to build on its success and create a blueprint for others to follow. This work shows what’s possible when groups, experts and institutions all work together to benefit patients and advance care delivery everywhere.