Day two of the HeartMath Best Practices Conference

Written by Todd Linden, president and CEO of Grinnell Regional Medical Center Friday, 20 May 2011 10:37

News - Best Practices Conference

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After being up at 4:00 AM on Wednesday morning, sleep ended up being more important to me than the 6:15 Morning Renewal "Running with Qi"! Those who did manage to get up that early certainly seemed to enjoy their experience and so perhaps I will join them tomorrow morning.

The presentations today took off right where the speakers yesterday ended with more very inspirational and insightful stories of how HeartMath continues to transform lives in healthcare organizations around the country.

We started with Robert Browning (HM Director of Project Development for Healthcare) leading us through a centering experiential around caring with one other person. It was amazing to hear from four or five people when we pulled back together as a group share their stories of heartfelt caring experiences.

Than it time to hear from the folks from Kaiser right here in California. Anne Foss-Durant, Director of Caring Services Integration for the Northern Region shared her HeartMath and Caring Science work at the Antioch facility when she was the CNO there. Like Mayo, Kaiser is known around the Country as one of the real leaders in patient quality and experience. Pulling Jean Watson's work on caring theory and HeartMath into a plan to create a truly top hospital was her vision and it was amazing to hear about results. In the last two JCAHO inspections at , there were zero deficiencies for example. It was noted that when the last inspection team arrived they joined into a Heart Lock-in to get their survey stated! Now that's coherent in action. One comment that really stuck me from Anne was how the trust between the nursing team and leadership improved noticeably because it became clear that both the Caring Science and HeartMath were about the staff caring for themselves and then in turn caring about the patient. She went on to say it really put the joy in patient care!

Next Eric Faller, Jeremy Hagar and Toni Carreon from the Fresno Kaiser hospital told their more recent story of how HeartMath is making a difference at their organization as well. Thankful that Kaiser decided to roll out HeartMath and Caring Science to all of the regional hospitals because of the sustained success at Antioch these three told several stories of innovation and engagement by their teams. I thought it was particularly neat to hear how they team taught HeartMath with a direct care giver and nursing leader.

Both groups from Kaiser noted that the benchmarking data can only get you so far and that in fact the data is really just a byproduct of them "truly caring for our patients"!

Next, I had to join a conference call and missed the next three presentations and lunch! Now normally you might think big deal, just another hotel lunch in a windowless conference room; but no we're talking about a beautiful outdoor venue on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I have to hand it to Joni and Lisa, the two HeartMath staffers most responsible for all the logistics of putting together this conference…superb!

Chad Nath, another HeartMath trainer from Grinnell Regional came with me to the conference. In exchange for doing all the presentational technical support for the conference HeartMath waived Chad's registration fee. So I asked Chad to share a couple thoughts about the three presentations I missed:

After the afternoon break I was able to rejoin the conference and hear an amazing story about the leadership development journey of Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana. Another top performing hospital in the US, Memorial has really integrated HeartMath into the leadership development program dating back into the mid 1990s. George Soper, flanked by Barbara Walsh and Deborah Drendall, explained how Coherence (a fundamental HeartMath concept) was really the foundation for effective performance. It was an impressive presentation of how they have used Steven Covey's Seven Habits work as the framework for their leadership development along side HeartMath. Assessments, teamwork, discipline and accountability were the other pillars in the most effective process!

The conference concluded today with a group of roundtable discussions with the speakers giving attendees a chance for more in-depth conversations around all their successes with HeartMath at their organizations. This evening it will be dinner followed by a bonfire on the beach…sounds like the perfect ending to a wonderful day of leaning, sharing, caring and interacting.