From the January/February Issue...
Welcome to a new year and new resolutions. At the top of
my list of resolutions is to listen more carefully and allow for longer
pauses in conversation. In Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) asks
Vincent Vega (John Travolta), “When in conversation, do you listen, or
do you just wait to talk?” After some thought, Vincent replies, “I wait
to talk, but I’m trying to listen.” Like most people, I wait to talk. My
hope is to become more engaged in the moment and be a better friend,
colleague, teacher, and parent. Several of the pieces in this issue of
the Journal of Healthcare Management (JHM) touch on the idea of improving communication.
We open with an interview with Laura S. Kaiser,
FACHE, president and CEO of SSM Health. Ms. Kaiser’s story is worth
listening to closely. She describes how history and mission inform her
health system’s current initiatives. I was very interested in hearing
her describe the Civica Rx project—her “passion,” as she refers to
it—which is designed to help bring affordable prescription drugs to the
marketplace. Without a doubt, bringing various stakeholders together to
address this patient care issue is one of the hardest problems the U.S.
health system faces today.
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