“Getting Clarity on Your Values and Success Matters”

The kinds of decisions that you have to make in health care are so critical, things like what’s covered and what’s not covered, how much it costs, what kinds of procedures are made available to people. These decisions could sometimes mean the difference between life and death. So, what practices do you engage in to give you more confidence in your decision making?

Well, I think you have to make sure you have the right expertise around the table and the right information around the table. For example, I am not a clinician, I have not gone to medical school. When something comes up clinical in nature, we make sure it gets referred to not just the right clinician, but somebody who specializes in that area, and can have a direct dialogue with somebody who’s shared the same type of training and background to determine the right thing for the patient.
I think getting clarity on your values and success matters. So, you always want to be making decisions that you think are the best for the mission, and are also consistent with our values. That includes acting with integrity, trust, honoring our commitments. And so I think if you’ve got the right experts in the room, you’ve got the right people making decisions, you’ve got the right information available to you and then you’re using your mission and your values as your guideposts for making decisions. We’re human beings, we’re never going to get it right all the time, but you’ll get it right a good portion of the time if you do that.