By Adam Kramer
In a bid to improve health care, patient trust and employee education, the North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System has teamed up with the Harvard School of Public Health and General Electric to launch the first employee learning initiative in the health care industry.
The hospital system announced Jan. 16 its plans to foster learning, growth and the continuing education of its 30,000 employees through the new program — The Center for Learning and Innovation.
The North Shore-LIJ system and its partners said the objective of the initiative is to work toward “advancing” the health care system’s “strategic and business goals.” The center, which has been in the planing stage for the past nine months, is based on the “corporate university” and is the first of its kind in the medical field.
“For organizations to succeed in a consumer-driven marketplace, they must be able to change rapidly,” said Michael Dowling, president and chief executive officer of North Shore-LIJ health systems. “North Shore-LIJ is taking a proactive approach by building a new model for management that will establish the health system as an employer and provider of choice throughout the northeast.
“Through the Center for Learning and Innovation, the health system will be investing in our greatest asset — our employees — by providing superior education and leadership,” he said. “To achieve our goals, we have turned to GE and Harvard to harness the best expertise from the private-sector, academia and health care.”
Dowling said the main focus of the center is to help the heath system deliver better services in a competitive consumer market. The new center, he said, will allow for constant investment in the hospital’s staff because they are “its best asset.”
Using the business acumen of GE and the academic quality of Harvard, Dowling said, the Center for Learning and Innovation will transform the system’s “organizational culture, invest and develop new groups of leaders at different levels in the health system and create a world class learning institution.”
The North Shore-LIJ Health System is a group of 18 hospitals throughout Queens, Long Island and Staten Island. Its three main health-care facilities are Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and the Staten Island University Hospital North Division.
The system, which employs more than 30,000, is the third largest non-profit health system in the United States, the largest employer in Long Island and the 14th largest employer in New York City with 10,425 employees in its city facilities.
“In response to the changing demands of patients and other constituents, organizations and technology are evolving so rapidly that health care professionals must continually seek new insights, perspectives and skills that enable them not only to respond to change, but also to anticipate it,” said David Shore, associate dean of the Harvard School of Public Health.
He said through the executive education program Harvard will work with North Shore-LIJ’s professionals on strategic planning as well as utilizing new information and techniques. Shore said to his knowledge there is nothing in the health field that can compare to the Center for Learning and Innovation.
“We are trying to build a power brand,” Shore said. “We want to become the system that people will pay more for, travel further to and wait longer for.”
There are only a few well-known hospitals and the group wants to elevate North Shore-LIJ to that level. The Center for Learning and Innovation provides the perfect platform to turn the system into a nationally recognized medical facility.
“The center is part of a comprehensive effort that will in time touch every part of our organization,” Dowling said. “With this initiative we will be raising the bar. While we will learn from Harvard and General Electric, they will learn from us.”
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
