June 1st at the Institute for Industrial Engineers National Conference in Nashville, TN - Topic - Managing Your Own Professional Transitions

Click here to register.

June 17th - a FREE virtual leadership briefing sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society TOPIC: Work Life Balance

Session 3: 11:30 - 12:00 PM CT

Summary Description: Work life balance is a challenge throughout our lives. This event will help you focus on what matters most so you can effectively balance how and where you spend your time.

Contact me for more information and for a link to this complimentary webinar

June 19th - Keynote Speech to the Leadership Essentials Institute at the University of Alabama Birmingham - Envisioning the Path Forward: Implementing Effective Transformational Organizational Change

Creating cultural change is necessary and needed if an organization expects to truly transform care.    While improving care, optimizing processes, and revolutionizing care delivery is difficult work, the rewards are many for the organization that is truly successful.

You will learn to:

1)     Recognize the components of organization change

2)     Identify ways that you can contribute to transforming both people and processes

3)     Review lessons learned from many years of healthcare experience

Event Description.  This HIMSS Leadership Institute, focused on aspiring leaders and executives in the health IT setting, will provide attendees with the guidance, concepts, and information needed to ensure understanding of the effective organizational leadership strategies and tactics that are needed to position both the organization and the health IT professional for success with the challenges of today and tomorrow.  Working very closely with University of Alabama - Birmingham, in the School of Health Professions Executive Learning Center as a host-partner, we have developed a customized agenda which identified topics based on the needs of the facility. 

Contact me for more information or click here to register for this session

June 24th for the Executive Healthcare Network - Dallas- 7:00 AM at Bravotech Offices

Topic:  A Panel Discussion: Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement through Systems Engineering

In a report titled, Better Health Care and Lower Costs: Accelerating Improvement through Systems Engineering, a recent Presidential Advisory panel of experts note:

• The health-care system is challenged by rising costs, now one-fifth of the United States' gross domestic product (GDP).
• A significant portion of those costs do not produce better health or quality of care.
• The report provided a comprehensive set of recommendations to address these cost and quality challenges, including through an interdisciplinary approach known as systems engineering.
• Systems engineering and management engineering tools have been widely used in other industries, such as manufacturing and aviation, to improve efficiency, reliability, productivity, quality, and safety of systems. Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach to analyze, design, manage, and measure a complex system in order to improve its efficiency, reliability, productivity, quality, and safety.

Panelists will discuss the recommendations and share obstacles and opportunities for systems engineering in their organizations. They will also share examples of how they are implementing the recommendations of the report in their organizations.  Panelists include industry experts from Dallas-area organizations such as Parkland Health and Hospital System, CHRISTUS Health, RTKL, Baylor Scott and White, and Tenet Healthcare Corporation

Contact me for more information and for an invitation to attend as my guest.

Jean Ann Larson & Associates

Honored for her leadership in advancing process improvement and IT initiatives, Jean Ann Larson received the 2014 SHS/HIMSS Excellence in Healthcare Management Engineering/Process Improvement Award.

The joint award honors individuals who have best demonstrated leadership in implementing significant synergies between the process improvement and information technology professions. In addition, the award recognizes individuals who have made contributions of a professional or technical nature, which may include research or development of improved processes (with or without technology), or exemplary contribution to the professional society.

The Boards of Directors of the Society for Health Systems (SHS) and HIMSS jointly select the recipient of this award.

"SHS is proud to honor Jean Ann for her long-term dedication to the field of healthcare performance improvement. Her service to the Society spans all aspects of volunteerism, from Board leadership to personal mentoring," said Ronald McDade, President of the Society for Health Systems Board of Directors. "We especially wanted to recognize the integrative nature of her career - which includes enhancing cooperation between SHS and HIMSS and augmenting our members' technical knowledge with change management and leadership skills, enabling us to better address the people-focused nature of our profession."

Larson is an experienced healthcare executive and has led organizational, professional and business transformations for over 28 years. She has served as an internal process engineer, consultant and chief learning officer, founding an award-winning and respected corporate university. She also served as a senior executive of two large healthcare organizations where she led the functions of organizational effectiveness, process improvement, executive development, talent management, team building, employee engagement, accreditation, quality, and strategic development facilitation as well as several clinical areas.

As a past president of SHS and past vice-chair of HIMSS, Larson has served on the boards of both organizations. She also holds various certifications in process improvement, consulting, executive coaching and several diagnostic assessments.

Her professional experience reflects the synergy between management engineering and process improvement. She has provided local committee leadership by serving on the HIMSS Management Engineering Advisory Board, the ME-PI Special Interest Group, and as the HIMSS Michigan Chapter president in 1996. In her current role on committees of both organizations, she continues her focus on opportunities for the two organizations to collaborate.

"As a former board member and vice chair of the HIMSS Board of Directors, Jean Ann has contributed her expertise to HIMSS at both the national and local levels. She developed course curricula and conducted training sessions across the country for HIMSS' Introduction to Systems and Management Engineering Tools for Success and served as the faculty advisory chair for these programs. In her current role on committees of both organizations, she continues her focus on opportunities for beneficial collaboration between HIMSS and SHS," said Carla Smith, MA, CNM, FHIMSS, executive vice president, HIMSS.

Jean Ann Larson & Associates