Leading from Love with Dr. Peter Pronovost

Leading the Rounds

Dr. Peter Pronovost is a world-renowned patient safety champion, innovator, critical care physician, researcher, and entrepreneur. His scientific work leveraging checklists to reduce catheter-related bloodstream infections has saved thousands of lives and earned him high-profile accolades, including being named one of TIme’s 100 most influential people
and receiving a coveted MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2008.
As Chief Quality & Clinical Transformation Officer at University Hospitals, Dr. Pronovost is charged with fostering ideation and implementation for new protocols to eliminate defects in value and thereby enhance quality of care.
Previously, Dr. Pronovost served as the Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine as well as the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.
Dr. Pronovost was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2011, elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and has received multiple honorary degrees. Dr. Pronovost is an advisor to the World Health Organizations’ World Alliance for Patient Safety and regularly addresses the U.S. Congress on patient safety issues. In response to a White House executive order, Dr. Pronovost co-chaired the Healthcare Quality Summit to modernize the Department of Health and Human Services quality measurement s
Questions We Asked:
•How do you like the nickname Mr. Checklist?
•How do you inspire those on your team to believe in themselves?
•How do trainees fit into the safety paradigm?
•How do we make quality something that everyone wants to be a part of?
•What advice do you have for young leaders in healthcare?
•Book Suggestions?
Quotes & Ideas:
•“Stories are the most potent force for change in the world.”
•Steps that go before checklists: believing and belonging
•Everyone is a part of the healthcare team and involved in patient care
•“The secret of great care is love”
•“If you have to drive change you have to believe in people and you have to love people.”
•Stop believing that you’re just a _____ and start believing that you can make a difference
•Teams that make good decisions are diverse and have independent input
•Healthcare teams play “shorthanded” because we marginalize members of the care team
•Experiential wisdom or time with the patient is often inversely correlated to medical wisdom
•In 90% of sentinel events, someone knew something was wrong before the event happened
•Three ways we change behavior: Regulate it, use economic incentives, and use the network effect
•“Change progresses at the speed of trust, and trust grows when we do things with rather than to people.”
•As an executive, your job is to illustrate why we are doing something, and then inspire others to figure out how to do it.
•“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead
•Be scientifically sound and ruthfully practical
•Change is almost always transdisciplinary so it pays to be curious and learn about other fields
•Be humble, curious and compassionate
•Large scale change is half evangelism and half science. It pays to communicate and write well.
Book Suggestions:
•Love 2.0 by Barbara Fredrickson
•The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
•Multipliers by Greg McKeown and Liz Wiseman
•Everybody Matters by Bob Chapman and Rajendra Sisodia