I had the pleasure of meeting Nick Jacobs at the Healthcare blogging summit.  I heard him speak about his philosophies and practice of running a healthcare system.  I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

You see-  to him healthcare is about caring– plain and simple.  Caring enough about your patients, community and employees to do your best at all times and when you fall short of your own expectation be honest and forthright. Furthermore, his model breaks the traditional mold of the ivory tower of administrators and the us (clinicians) vs. them (admin) mentality that works to only harm the patients.  It seems that he fervently believes that if the leaders don’t care then there is no way for the organization to care.  Ultimately, this will burn out employees and translate to patients not getting what they need and deserve.  The clearest and most inspiring articulation of this was his post over at Hospital Impact.

Nick also has his own blog at Windber.  He definitely gave me a glimmer of hope that one day, if we get back to what matters, we can fix this mess.