Upheaval: Crafting a Culture & Managing Your Message Through a Crisis

By Paul Hiltz and Amanda Lucey

Imagine this: one of the nation’s top hospital administrators partners with one of the world’s top branding and public relations experts. They joined forces in Naples, Florida, to lead a premiere healthcare organization during a management crisis that split the hospital and the community. But as this crisis boils, another looms.

COVID-19 is bearing down on America, making the conflict in management seem tiny in comparison to this existential threat.

The story that unfolded here took various forms at every one of America’s 2,903 community hospitals. Upheaval offers an inside look as one very attentive community gathered as never before to deal with this life-and-death situation.

Thankfully, management had already begun a new day of openness, community, and physician partnership, and an appeal for confidence and understanding. Other hospitals, once competitors, became eager partners in the face of this threat. The board of trustees was alert and gathered vital community leaders together. Doctors locked arms and braced.

Naples created a pluralistic, collaborative organization just in time. Led by the physicians, a war room strategy developed among all the community providers, and a new spirit of openness and communication, vital in a pandemic, matured.

They quickly got to work engaging the entire community.

It was frightening locking down society, wearing masks, creating isolation rooms, and hitting new lows in employee morale.

Recruitment became difficult. Nurses worked double shifts. The news media covered every chirp, and finances looked bad.

It should not surprise us that Naples, a community that appreciates and admires excellent community healthcare, rallied to their distress call for help.

This community, led capably by the physicians, put together vast resources to confront the constantly changing threat. Luckily, authors Paul Hiltz and Amanda Lucey kept notes, including insights and the courage of the people behind the closed doors of isolated COVID-19 patients.

Those stories are offered here as a management primer on crisis management, allowing the healthcare team’s performance to re-create the brand with their heroism, and as a warning to communities across the country: connect and stay connected with your constituents, because one day, you will need each other desperately.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Advantage Media Group
• Release date: Dec 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9781642257854

Paul Hiltz

For over three decades PAUL HILTZ, FACHE, has served as a symbol for innovative leadership within the healthcare industry. Today, he serves as the CEO and President of Naples Comprehensive Health in Naples, FL, recognized as one of the nation's top 100 healthcare systems. Prior to joining NCH in 2019, Paul served as the President and CEO of Mercy Medical Center. His commitment has always been clear, maintaining the highest standards in clinical quality and patient satisfaction.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

WHEN THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

Naples, Florida’s Gulf Coast cosmopolitan community, enjoys top rankings of America’s highest quality of life. Wonderful soft white powder beaches with daily deposits of colorful shells, sunshine, crystal blue water, and amazing marine life. Everywhere you look are magnificent housing developments, great hotels, world-class restaurants, golf courses, and outstanding schools. It seems like Naples has it all, including top-rated healthcare.

But this canary in the cage begins to chirp. In the middle of a top management change, a worldwide pandemic looms. Naples was not the first community to be impacted. We could listen to the canary weeks before the first case showed up in Southwest Florida. New York City was chaos.

A frequent metaphor in our culture, the phrase canary in the cage suggests an early warning, threat, or alert. Decades ago, miners would bring a canary for work deep underground not only because they spread joy and a sense of well-being but also because of their sensitivity to the air. They became pets to the miners, who showed great affection for their companions above and below the earth. Smithsonian magazine reported that the anatomy of the canary allows them to get a dose of oxygen when they inhale and another when they exhale. They get a double dose of air and any poisons the air might contain, so miners would get an earlier warning than with other creatures.¹

Even in the early days of our work in Naples, we sensed that this situation, the rapid gathering of cooperative strength by the leadership of a highly rated community hospital organization, could present national implications and may well signal a new day not just in healthcare but in business and community leadership generally.

America’s healthcare providers may soon face a choice: awaken to a different, more enlightened way of doing business or face another pandemic situation as unprepared as in 2020–2022.

The story that unfolded here took various forms at every one of America’s 2,903 community hospitals. Healthcare leaders, as well as healthcare consumers, can see how one very attentive community gathered as never before to deal with this life-and-death situation.

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NCH has two acute care hospitals: NCH Downtown Baker Hospital in Naples, Florida, and NCH North Naples Hospital.

Naples Comprehensive Health is one of the most forward-looking healthcare organizations in the country. More than just a few hospitals, it is an alliance of more than nine hundred independent physicians and medical facilities in dozens of locations throughout Collier County and Southwest Florida. We offer advanced comprehensive care and embrace new, effective ideas in medical care and healing.

And despite the canary chirping in the cage, it happened so quickly that people were stunned.

The management gets the double dose of air and, thankfully, had already begun a new day of openness, community and physician partnership, and an appeal for confidence and understanding. They tested the air around them. Other hospitals, once competitors, became eager partners in the face of this threat. The board of trustees was alert and gathered vital community leaders together.

Naples created a pluralistic, collaborative organization just in time. Led by the physicians, a war room strategy developed among all the community providers, and a new spirit of openness and communication, vital in a pandemic, matured.

We quickly got to work engaging the entire community. A canary comes to mind, and it’s not Tweety Bird. There was national dialogue, and at face value, the messages were mixed. This will go away soon to duck and cover. We chose to duck and cover early and began to ramp up the changes we needed to make to fight the pandemic. We needed the community.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.²

—MACBETH BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The ingredients were all in the cauldron now. Each ingredient had power, but when all were combined over fire, it got serious. Locking down society, wearing masks, creating isolation rooms, and employee morale hitting new lows. At first, there was a shortage of personal protective garments and proper masks. Some left employment to be with their families.

Recruitment became difficult. Nurses worked double shifts. The news media covered every chirp, and finances looked bad. The healthcare world has fragile margins that do not react well to chaos.

It should not surprise us that Naples, a community that appreciates and admires excellent community healthcare, rallied to our distress and call for help.

This community, led capably by the physicians, put together vast resources to confront the constantly changing threat.

LEADERSHIP TOOL KIT (AMANDA)

ALERT STAKEHOLDERS

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Too often, many organizations consider marketing, PR, and community relations an afterthought. Such effort quickly gets put to the side in the face of looming problems. Unfortunately, however, this strategy never works and can confuse community members. With little effort to illuminate decisions, it flies in the face of alert citizens with such an expectation. The unspoken community reaction usually results in: Let us know some serious details about your decisions so we can make an informed judgment about whether we will choose you to take care of us.

We paused, pivoted, and