Best Places to Work get better results

The healthcare marketplace is making new demands on hospital administrators every day. Are your patients satisfied with the care they receive? Are you delivering care at an affordable price? Are you improving the overall health of the population in your service territory? Those three goals make up “the triple aim,” the phrase coined in 2008 by Dr. Donald Berwick, who went on to run the CMS in the Obama administration. None of the three goals can be achieved without a highly motivated workforce that buys into the mission. You need everyone—from frontline caregivers to administrators to the housekeepers on the ward floors—to operate flexibly and efficiently in pursuit of the common goal of delivering high quality, affordable care.

Our annual Best Places to Work honorees have internalized that lesson. And they’re willing to test their progress in achieving the necessary esprit de corps by entering our annual competition.

This year, we’ve chosen to highlight in this supplement a major question that confronts every administrator seeking to achieve the triple aim. How can you motivate your workforce to raise productivity? Read reporter Bob Herman’s insightful article to find out how some of the best places to work in the nation are making it happen.

I also want to give a special shout out to Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, La., and its CEO, Teri Fontenot, who have earned Best Places to Work honors all nine years it has been published. Consistent performance in pursuit of excellence is worth noting, and emulating.